Fletcher's crusade is off-base
George Fletcher's article proclaiming the illusionary supremacy of international law over the sovereignty of traditional nation-states ("Is this really war?," Oct 23, page 9) is not in the least enlightening.
If such transnational entities like "Terror Inc" are to be recognized as agents of war under the laws of land warfare, then Fletcher would have us believe that these landless sovereign entities should be officially recognized as the juridical person of a foreign state equivalent, only without the territory.
There are precedents. From around 1870-1945, the Holy See was recognized as a sovereign entity despite lacking the critical qualification of terra imperium or territorial jurisdiction under international law. Due in part to the realpolitik of the likes of Bismarck, the papal states of the feudal era had disappeared from the maps of Europe by that time. But the Vatican, in its capacity as an enduring ecclesiastical sovereign entity, also still legally claimed it had a supreme dominion over all the earth, including those successfully Christianized nation-states of the fallen Roman Empire.
Fletcher is on a crusade to establish the UN's universal jurisdiction, just as the "Terror Inc" is on a jihad to establish an ecclesiastical dominion over the earth. In Afghanistan, the destruction of ancient Buddhist statues is evidence of the disregard for cultural and religious relics protected by the 1907 Hague Convention. This treaty includes a clause for settling disputes arising out of hostilities and military occupation of claimed territory at the International Court of Justice.
Rather than abide by the laws of land warfare, Fletcher promotes the rule of landless jurisdictional authority to combat the "landless revolutionaries" of a new jihad. Perhaps he should read FM 27-10 Rules of Land Warfare, which is the US Army's manual on the Hague Convention of 1907. It is the authoritative source for clearly defining the elastic legal circumstances of effective military control of an occupied area including its transnational jurisdictional authority.
I think Fletcher should remember that `landless revolutions' never worked and the unconventional soldiers of the "American Empire" on the ground in Afghanistan are not in a state of decline.
Jeff Geer
Las Vegas, Nevada
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