Lay Off International Criminal Law

It might crack. Sonny describes my defense of international law as “full-throated,” but it’s also as full-throated a warning against Europeans who want to put American officials on trial as it is against Americans who wouldn’t mind putting international law on trial itself. Sonny actually seems to conclude his enthusiasm for the latter approach with a restatement of my concern:

Try and run a court like this with America in full opposition. See how long it lasts and how effective it is.

It’s pretty pathetic, and fairly ominous, to imagine that the West prefers infighting over ideological consistency to outfighting against the rising number of people who are actively opposed to liberty. If some bunch of idiots (this is not a derogatory pun directed at my bloggy colleague) puts American officials on international trial, international law will crack. And if that happens, Europeans and Americans lose, and autocrats and anti-democrats everywhere win. That seems worth avoiding, even at the marginal expense of principle, on both sides of the Atlantic.