We violate our treaty obligations at our peril

It is said that nations, like individuals, reap what they sow, if they sow division and discord, if they sow lying and deception, then that is what they will reap. I have been considering the behaviour of both the UK and the USA towards their national and international obligations and conclude that if they continue fostering the divisive, suspicious and openly racist approaches they have been displaying towards people whom they need for their future peace, security and national well-being then the future does indeed look bleak. In both of our nations, the government has been promoting an image of other nations whom they seek to portray as ‘the enemy’ or at the least as hostile to the peace and prosperity and interests of the UK and the USA, as less democratic, less civilised, less moral etc. and this narrative appears to have been accepted as truth by a significant section of both of our populations, allowing our governments to pursue policy that is ideological, and from my perspective, irrational. I think this is true with respect to members of the European Union, Russia, Iran etc. There appears to be a quite deliberate degradation of such nations.

What is very alarming is the persistent and quite deliberate breach of trust by our respective governments that reflects on our wider populace. Other nations are looking askance and in some measure of bewilderment at the lies and misrepresentations that we are being fed about their respective nations. Lying, breaking of promises and betrayals of trust are scorned amongst all nations and peoples, but such behaviour has become the political and diplomatic norm for both the UK and the USA. It matters not what other nations do, we are supposed to be the democratic models, the standard bearers for honesty and trustworthiness. The moral conduct of governments ought not to differ from the moral conduct of an individual because governments are composed of individual citizens of their country. What is cowardly, cruel and unacceptable conduct in a person is just as cowardly, cruel and unacceptable in a government or a nation.

The Romans established what they termed the “Law of Nations”. As nations were regarded as societies of individuals united together, then laws that are expected to be obeyed by individuals are also obligatory on societies of united individuals. The Romans considered two expressions that governed the conduct of nations and individuals as synonymous ‘jus gentium’ and ‘jus naturale’. Jus gentium was the basis of the law of nations as it signified the law that is established by natural reason for all people, as opposed to ‘jus civile’ the civil laws which applied to particular states. Jus gentium is therefore synonymous with natural law and was defined by the Emperor Justinian as “the law of nations is common to the whole human race”, that is, it was considered to be the application of the law of nature to nations, embodying precepts prescribed by the law of nature to states. For the Romans, that law was no less obligatory for states than for individuals.

You are fed up with me reminding you how Adam Smith tells us that without justice the whole edifice of society will crumble into atoms. The Romans said the same. The jus gentium is founded on justice, fair and equal treatment for everyone, and no amount of Presidential or Prime Ministerial legal phraseology can negate the inalienable truth underlying it. But, and this is the point of this post, if that applies to individuals, it also applies to nation states. International law must be founded on those rules of conduct defined by reason as just, as must the several relations between independent nations. It is a fundamental precept of the law of nations of the right of every nation to just treatment from all other nations. Justice is not only the basis of civilised society, it is also the basis of civilised international society, and this has consequences for commerce, trade and international treaties. Our governments should be very careful to abstain from anything that may violate these international principles, and yet the governments of both the UK and the USA appear to take a delight in violating them at every opportunity. Soberingly, it is also a fundamental of the law of nations that the right of refusing to submit to injustice, of resisting injustice by force if necessary, is part of the law of nature, and as such is recognized by the law of nations.

I will finish this rather lengthy post by observing that, as justice is normally secured in civil society by contracts between persons, so it is secured internationally by treaties, such as the Treaty of Rome, or the Iranian Nuclear Treaty. To the Romans, national contracts were even more sacred and binding than private ones on account of the far greater interests involved. The British and American governments should ponder their present policy imperatives very carefully. If you violate your treaties, you violate the law of nations. We may be very close to acting extremely unjustly with unforseen consequences. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat