Obama and Leftist academics are orchestrating an international power play to move outside of our legal systems: "
John Bolton: They find much greater prospects for success in international forums like the United Nations than in the U.S. Congress. Hence, the role and limits of international law, determining what is legally binding for our international conduct and domestic policy, will be a critical area of debate in the coming years.
John Bolton at RIGHTNETWORK
EXCERPTS:
Many in his administration are doing their utmost to subvert America’s well-deserved reputation as an adherent of the rule of law by subordinating it to the dangerous concept that international law, as defined by its high priests, overrides our domestic law, including in the judiciary. What is or is not legally binding about international law, particularly customary international law, is wide open to dispute.
Because democratic debates in constitutional systems like ours are so unsatisfying and often so unproductive for America’s statists, they have, in essence, launched an international power play to move outside of our legal systems. They find much greater prospects for success in international forums like the United Nations than in the U.S. Congress.
The most visible, immediate impact of President Obama’s fascination with international law appears in the global war against terrorism, a term he tries to avoid. Instead, he adopted the view widely held in Europe and among legal theorists that terrorist threats and attacks should be treated under the criminal law enforcement paradigm, rather than as attacks on America subject to the law of war.
Why we should defer to international norms on terrorism is, to say the least, unclear. The U.N. has repeatedly tried and failed to reach a comprehensive definition of terrorism.
The administration has yet to say, for example, that it will oppose potential European efforts to prosecute those responsible for enhanced interrogation techniques. This devotion to international norms is designed to intimidate U.S. decision makers, military forces, and intelligence agents, and violates basic democratic precepts that we are responsible for and fully capable of holding our government to its responsibilities under our Constitution.
In fact, limiting America’s military options and capabilities through international agreements and organizations is a high priority for the Obama administration.
This is not the view, however, of those who want to constrain our sovereignty. After all, if we decided what is right and wrong, they couldn’t second-guess us and bend us to their views. Having failed to win this point within our political system, however, they simply retreat into international organizations, hoping they and their international leftist allies can win there what they failed to win at home.
