Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
The United Nations has once again criticized the United States for our treatment of enemy combatants held at Gitmo. They claim that we are violating their “fundamental human rights”.
The UN’s opinion means so much to me right now.
Maybe we just don’t agree on what the word “violation” means.
In today’s National Review Online, Mario Loyola argues that conservative esteem for the rule of law should extend to a refined understanding of international law, backed up with consistent enforcement of its principles (in other words, either both Kosovo and Iraq, or neither). Too late. That issue was settled over 60 years ago.
Here is how the Economist defines regulatory capture:
Gamekeeper turns poacher or, at least, helps poacher. The theory of regulatory capture was set out by Richard Posner, an economist and lawyer at the University of Chicago, who argued that “REGULATION is not about the public interest at all, but is a process, by which interest groups seek to promote their private interest … Over time, regulatory agencies come to be dominated by the industries regulated.” Most economists are less extreme, arguing that regulation often does good but is always at RISK of being captured by the regulated firms.
Familiar examples of regulatory capture in the US would include those agencies charged with setting rates, fees, and prices. The ICC, originally meant to keep railroads from overcharging farmers with no other means of shipping their commodities, eventually became a means by which trucking companies and interstate bus lines set prices, limited competition, and allocated routes. The FAA, until deregulation in 1978, assured airlines of an orderly and profitable division of routes, without the prospect of interlopers disrupting the arrangement. Similarly, the United Nations, formed in the very act of destroying a murderous tyranny, came to become a system for regulating tyranny and allocating the areas in which tyrants might operate without interference.
The immediate predecessor of the United Nations was actually not the League of Nations, but the Atlantic Charter between the United States and Great Britain. This was purely an Anglo-American document in terms of its principles as well as its origin. The two signatory nations disavowed any territorial claims, embraced consensual sovereignty and self-determination for all people, and stated their support for international economic cooperation, freedom of the seas, and eventual worldwide demilitarization. Even though the US had not yet entered the war, the treaty embraced the destruction of the Nazi regime as a common foreign policy objective. It also contemplated, but did not establish, “a wider and permanent system of general security.” The original agreement between the two countries was signed August 14, 1941. On January 1, 1942, the representatives of 26 governments, including some governments in exile, signed the “Declaration by United Nations, Subscribing to the Principles of the Atlantic Charter.” The United Nations then became the formal name of the anti-Nazi allies.
The signatories included the USSR. Stalin’s government had no intention of following most of the principles set forth in the treaty; its signing was a transparent fraud. The Atlantic Charter and the United Nations were designed to restrain the practices of aggression, brutality, dictatorship, and government-sanctioned murder, yet the United Nations brought in one of the most brutal and murderous dictatorships as a founding member. Stalin’s USSR set a precedent which is followed to this day.
The contradiction was present from the beginning in the UN Charter:
Preamble
The Purposes of the United Nations are:1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
These ends were not and could not be harmonized. They were in fact placed in opposition:
Article 2
Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.Article 55
With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote … universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
Note the contrasting strength of the language in these two provisions (“nothing …shall authorize” and “shall promote”). If human rights are truly universal, the interposition of national boundaries must be irrelevant, since they exist everywhere. As a practical matter, Violations of human rights were defined as outside of the scope of the UN, as long as they took place within a country’s borders. It is as though there had been no reason to fight Hitler except for his invasion of Poland.
We cannot defeat tyranny by leaving tyrants safe and secure, as long as they stay close to home. The rights to life, liberty, and property are not just local customs. Either human rights are universal, or they are nothing.
There was a time, many years ago, when I took a six month sublet on a house. The rent was so reasonable that I couldn’t pass up on the deal, but the place was going to be sold after the lease was up so I knew that I couldn’t stay there any longer than that.
The house wasn’t furnished, and I wasn’t about to shell out a few hundred bucks for curtains or blinds for all of those windows. I thumbtacked bedsheets up so the neighbors wouldn’t have to see me wandering around the place.
A woman I was seeing at the time was appalled! “You have bedsheets over the windows! What will the neighbors think?”
She didn’t understand, so I sat her down and gently explained that it didn’t matter one little bit what opinion the neighbors formed. I was going to be gone in 180 days, never to see any of them again for the rest of my life. No, what really mattered was what I thought of them!
After all, I work nights and keep odd hours. All I would have to do would be to turn my TV or stereo up a little in the wee hours of the morning to be a real nuisance. I didn’t own the house, so it was their property values at risk if I didn’t bother to mow the lawn or take the trash out. There wasn’t a thing they could do to me in the brief time I was going to be there that would matter one little bit, while I could cause a fair amount of frustration.
Not that I was looking for a fight, of course. Just like most people, I prefer to get along. They didn’t bother me so I acted just like I always do and was the best neighbor on the block. Considering my sensitivity to security issues and my odd schedule, that little section of suburbia was actually safer while I was living there. Sort of like having an unpaid security guard living next door.
I am sharing this slice of my past with you because of this news story on the Reuters website. It seems that Arab attitudes concerning the United States is growing ever more negative, which supposedly indicates that a change in US foreign policy is needed.
In recent years, a Liberal talking point has become the linchpin of many complaints concerning the Bush administration. This trope can best be summed up by the phrase “They don’t like us anymore!”
It seems that the American public in general and our elected government specifically is supposed to drop everything and pay close attention to the opinions and attitudes of people living in other countries, people who cannot vote in US elections and who almost certainly do not have our best interests at heart. These opinions are supposed to dictate how the US public votes, and it is supposed to play a central role when our government makes major policy decisions.
The big problem is that I just can’t see why I should give two hoots about how the US polls overseas. This goes double when it comes to opinions collected in third world dictatorships, places where the press is a tool of whatever royal family or oppressive religious organization that demonizes the US in order to cover up their own failings.
When considered in this light, actually changing our foreign policy just because an opinion poll says we should would mean that our elected officials aren’t doing their job to look out for our interests. In fact, it might even be a treasonous act.
This blog normally tilts towards the right side of the political aisle, so there aren’t too many Liberals dropping by. But if there should happen to be one or two that stumble across this post, maybe they could explain why the opinion of the great unwashed in other countries should matter one fig when it comes to our foreign policy.
After all, history teaches us that these people are going to hate us no matter what we do. Why in the world does it matter if they hate us a little more?
“Western nations yesterday pledged $500m (£263m) in aid to the Palestinians as the UN humanitarian chief warned an economic crisis meant the Gaza strip was a “ticking time bomb”.
A total of $114m will be spent on humanitarian aid. The remaining money will be used to meet a shortfall in UN emergency funding and to cover the reconstruction of infrastructure.”
Shannon said it succinctly: “I can think of few things more vile than advocating for the deaths of innocents for what amounts to a very large and expensive piece of performance art.” But Joshua Brook’s “Human Rights Advocates Embarrass Themselves” lays out a similar common sense argument.