“Legal Imperialism” and International Law: Legal Foundations for War Crimes, Debt Collection and Colonization
James Petras
Introduction
By now we are
familiar with imperial states using their military power to attack,
destroy and occupy independent countries. Boatloads of important studies have
documented how imperial countries have seized and pillaged the resources of
mineral-rich and agriculturally productive countries, in consort with
multi-national corporations. Financial critics have provided abundant data on
the ways in which imperial creditors have extracted onerous rents, royalties
and debt payments from indebted countries and their taxpayers, workers,
employees and productive sectors.
What has not been examined fully is the over-arching legal
architecture which informs,justifies and facilitates
imperial wars, pillage and debt collection.
The Centrality of Imperial
Law
While force and
violence, especially through overt and covert military intervention, have
always been an essential part of empire-building, it does not operate in a
legal vacuum: Judicial institutions, rulings and legal precedents precede,
accompany and follow the process of empire building. The legality of imperial
activity is based largely on the imperial state’s judicial system and its own
legal experts. Their legal theories and opinions are always presented as over-ruling
international law as well as the laws of the countries targeted for
imperial intervention. Imperial law supersedes international law simply because
imperial law is backed by brute force; it possesses imperial/colonial
air, ground and naval armed forces to ensure the supremacy of imperial law. In
contrast, international law lacks an effective enforcement mechanism. Moreover,
international law, to the extent that it is effective, is applied only to the
weaker powers and to regimes designated by the imperial powers as ‘violators’.
The very judicial processes, including the appointment of judges and
prosecutors who interpret international law, investigate international crime
and arrest, sentence and punish ‘guilty’ parties are under to the influence of
the reigning imperial powers. In other words, the application and jurisdiction
of international law is selective and subject to constraints imposed by the
configurations of imperial and national power. International law, at best, can
provide a‘moral’ judgment, a not insignificant basis for strengthening the
political claims of countries, regimes and people seeking redress from imperial
war crimes and economic pillage. To counter the claims and judgments pertaining
to international law, especially in the area of the Geneva protocols such as
war crimes and crimes against humanity, imperial legal experts, scholars
and judges have elaborated a legal framework to justify or exempt
imperial-state activity.
The Uses of Imperial Law
Empire-building throughout
history is the result of conquest – the use or threat of superior
military force. The US global empire is no exception. Where compliant rulers ‘invite’
or ‘submit’ to imperial domination, such acts of treason on the part of
‘puppet’ or ‘client’rulers usually precipitate popular rebellions, which
are then suppressed by joint imperial and collaborator armies. They cite
imperial legal doctrine to justify their intervention to repress a subject
people in revolt. While empires arose through the direct or indirect use
of unbridled force, the maintenance and consolidation of empiresrequires
a legal framework. Legal doctrines precede, accompany and follow the
expansion and consolidation of empire for several reasons.
Legality is really an
extension of imperial conquest by other means. A state of constant warfare raises
the cost of imperial maintenance. Force, especially in imperial democracies
undermines the sense of civic virtue, which the rulers and citizens
claim to uphold. Maintaining ‘law and order’ in the conquered nations requires
a legal system and doctrine to uphold imperial rule, giving the facade
of legitimacy to the outside world , attracting collaborator classes and
individuals and providing the basis for the recruitment of local military,
judicial and police officials.
Imperial legal
pronouncements, whether issued directly by executive, judicial, military or
administrative bodies, are deemed the ‘supreme law of the universe’, superiorto
international law and protocols fashioned by non-imperial authorities and legal
experts. This does not imply that imperial rulers totally discard
international law: they just apply it selectively to their adversaries,
especially against independent nations and rulers, in order to justify imperial
intervention and aggression - Hence the ‘legal bases’ for dismantling
Yugoslavia or invading Iraq and assassinating its rulers.
Legal rulings are issued by
the imperial judiciary to force states to comply with the economic demands of multi-national
corporations, banks, creditors and speculators, even after the local or
national courts have ruled such claims unlawful. Imperial law protects
and provides sanctuary and financial protection to convicted former
collaborator-rulers charged with human rights crimes, pillage of public
treasury and destruction of democratic institutions. Imperial judicial and
administrative agencies selectively investigate, prosecute and levy severe
fines and even jail sentences on banks, individuals and financial institutions
of their competitor imperial countries, thereby strengthening the
economic position of their own ‘national’ imperial firms.
Judicial officials are not
only ‘instruments’ of closely related imperial political and economic
powers; they also instrumentalize and, in some cases, override officials
from other branches of their own imperial government and economic sectors.
Judges, with ties to particular financial sectors, may rule in favor of one
group of creditors thereby prejudicing others. In a recent ruling, a New York
judge ruled in favor of the demands by minority creditors that the Argentine
government make ‘full payment’ on long-standing national debt in, prejudicing
already agreed upon payments to the majority of creditors who had negotiated an
earlier debt-restructuring arrangement.
Imperiallegal doctrine
has played a central role in justifying and providing a basis for the
exercise of international terrorism. Executives, such as US Presidents Bush and
Obama, have been provided with the legal power to undertake cross-national
‘targeted’ assassinations of opponents using predator drones and ordering
military intervention, in clear violation of international law and national
sovereignty. Imperial law, above all else,‘legalizes’ aggression and economic
pillage and undermines the laws of targeted countries, creating lawlessness and
chaos among its victims.
Imperial law and judicial
rulings form the basis for imperial subjugation on the assumption that the
world legal systems are multi-tiered: Imperial-centered legal systems supersede
those of less powerful states. Within each ‘tier’ there are further
refinements: Competing imperial legal systems adjudicate in favor of
their partisan political and economic elites. Imperial clients who obey their
imperial overlords are favored by imperial laws while imperial laws are applied
against their adversaries.
Conclusion
Clearly in a world imperial
system there can be no independent judicial bodies who abide by
universally accepted legal codes. Each set of judicial authorities reflect
and actively promote policies favoring and extending their imperial
prerogatives. There are rare exceptions where a judge will rule against a
particular imperial policy but over the long run imperial law guides judicial
opinions
Imperial legal doctrines
and judicial decisions set the groundwork for imperial wars and economic
pillage. The empire’s legal experts redefine assassinations, coercion, torture
and arbitrary arrests as compatible with the ‘constitutional order’ by claiming
imminent and constant threats to the security of the imperial
state.
Law is not simply part of
the superstructure “reflecting” the power of economic or political
institutions: it also guides and directs political and economic institutions
committing material resources to implement imperial doctrines.
In this sense,
imperial rulers are not ‘lawless’ as some liberal critics would argue;
they function in accordance with ‘imperial jurisprudence’ and are faithful to
the legal doctrines of empire building. It is pointless to argue that most
imperial leaders trample on constitutional guarantees and international laws.
If an imperial ruler pursued a “constitutional agenda” eroding imperial
prerogatives or, even worse, applied international law to prosecute those carrying
out brutal imperial policy, he would be quickly condemned for dereliction of
duty and/or immoral behavior and impeached or overthrown.
