International Law, and a Book Recommendation

I just watched a great C-SPAN show where an author was speaking at Trinity Church in Atlanta, Georgia, USA about a new book he and a co-author have published. It's entitled The Internationalists and it's about a rather large swath of human history from about 1600 (at the beginning of the Renaissance to today) and the core issue of the book is the world order concerning "the right to war".

Here's a link to amazon.com: The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World

He said the publisher only allowed 150,000 words, so they cut it down to 150,310. His humor was subtle and yet caught the audience every time.

Perhaps the most critical moments in history relate to a changing of the 'world order' and he explains Napoleon, The Nurmberg Trials, the Vietnam War, Crimea, South Sudan, and Iraq wars. It's fascinating stuff in large part because this isn't a subject ever discussed. Yet, its crucial t how nations relate and restrain one another.

I've been thinking of an idea for a few days and this book lecture has inspired me to suggest the idea today. It is that we should prevent wars of conquest, such as Russia taking Crimea, by sanctioning Russia, but we should also offer other solutions to the problems. For example, Russia desperately needs its access of Crimea for a very important military base and the fact Ukraine became independent of the Soviet Union was almost an accident. These things happen, but how can we readjust to enable Russia what it needs while letting Ukraine keep its territory and national unity.

In the lecture the author discusses the beginning of the League of Nations and the United Nations and how there wasn't a great replacement for the old standard world order wherein wars of aggression were acceptable, but to outlaw them without a sufficient replacement led to chaos.

Now, I'm suggesting we need more than simple sanctions against nations such as Russia, who may have serious important reasons for their unlawful behaviors. We cannot supply a blind stupid Justice. Thus, I recommend Ukraine and Russia, perhaps with others, discuss a way for Ukraine to lease Crimea (or at least some part of it) to Russia for monetary or other payments. Rather than continue the sanctions which our current US president doesn't even want to impose, we could find a way to resolve the issue to a simple contract. The UK leased Hong Kong from China for a century, surely Russia can lease Crimea from Ukraine with benefits to everyone.