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Missing the point

The recent letters by Richard Hartzell on international law and how it relates to the question of Taiwan's sovereignty have been informative (Letters, July 4 and March 19, page 8). Nonetheless, they leave this writer with a sense of puzzlement. How relevant, I ask, is international law to the topic? The presumption seems to be, and quite reasonably for a lawyer, that it is at the root of the issue. Here, I will argue otherwise.

First, international law's effectiveness rests upon the willingness of nation-states to abide by its strictures. Because there is no arbitrary third party, or court system with the backing of an enforcement agency, laws may be broken with impunity. The sole consequence is the opprobrium of the international community.

In addition, in many countries, perhaps most, international law must first be ratified by domestic law and large countries in particular reserve the right to override international law when convenient. In the US for example, the Taiwan Relations Act and other domestic laws provide the impetus for US actions related to Taiwan. You can rest assured that the State Department and the US administration do not spend their time pouring over old international accords. China on the other hand, seems to be quite happy to use "law" as a tool to achieve it's own ends. China's "Anti-Secession" Law, both reinforces the supremacy of domestic law and the tendency of the powerless to invoke international law.

A similar issue is the origins of any international "law." By it's very limitations, international law emerges through a consensus of dominant powers at the time. As a result, some are more commonly obeyed that others. The so-called Law of the Sea is a good example of this, as it is in every nation's interests for their trading vessels to move through the seas without hinderance. However, other agreements, such as the Treaty of Versailles, were imposed on one minority (Germany, and Austria-Hungary mainly) by another minority, in this case the victors. In other words, while international laws rests upon international agreements, they may not reflect the consensus of nation-states at the time, they maybe irrelevant today, or worse, may be simply ignored.

Next, in the field of political science at least, the notion of national sovereignty is generally independent of international law. One commonly used definition is Hans Morgenthau's. He states that the main measure is a monopoly of organized violence throughout an uncontested, clearly defined, geographical region. Taiwan meets this criteria. As Hartzell mentioned, it has all the aspects of a state. What he does not mention is that there are numerous examples of states that do not meet these criteria that are still considered sovereign: Colombia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and numerous African "states."

Finally, it is likely that most countries, aside from China, would happily recognize Taiwan as a normal country, complete with the trappings of sovereignty, if there was no pressure from China, which raises and interesting point: If the international community would treat Taiwan as a sovereign nation, it is in fact a sovereign nation. Ipso facto.

To sum up, Taiwan is, to all intents and purposes, sovereign. Waffling on about various issues of international law merely muddies the waters and detracts from the main issue: China is the only obstacle between Taiwan and statehood.

Benjamin Adams
Taipei
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