The United States charged four members of the Russian military with war crimes on Wednesday for the abduction and torture of an American citizen in Ukraine.
You may not have expressively said that, but literally in every post or news article about Russian war crimes, there’s always at least one person pointing at NATO and in particular US war crimes.
No doubt did that happen, yet you don’t see Russian state attorneys trying the US in court. And they can, international criminal law can be ruled in in any country of the world. Now why don’t they or the Chinese do it? For one, because they don’t want to poke the US too much. But if that isn’t the case, the only explanation left is that they don’t want to be open to the possible repercussions of being held to whataboutism themselves.
No why does it happen in the US or NATO countries? Simply because the executive power holds very little sway on the legal proceedings of the attorney General offices, at least when compared to Authotarian countries such as Russia or China.
Honestly my point isn’t “but America war crimes too!!!” Which would probably be fair to call whattaboutism, but pointing out that if americ adoesnt recognise other countries courts or international courts, then why should they expect Russia to care about what their courts say?
No one expects Russia to accept any foreign rulings. However as the Nuremberg trials proved, acceptance can be enforced by the stronger party.
And in the likely case this doesn’t happen, the court ruling can mean a lot less foreign diplomacy leeway for the US government when it comes to dealing with Russia. Also a US ruling would extend to every country that has extradition treaties with the US. So anyone proven guilty would effectively be a fugitive in a third and the most powerful and influential third of the world.
Look at what the international criminal courts ruling already caused. Putin didn’t attend the meeting of the BRICS+ countries in South-Africa. The same would go for Brazil who also accept den-Haag.
Even if the leadership of a country would like for any proven criminal to appear in their country and would like the justice department to not move, in any and every democratic country, they couldn’t without causing a major breach of constitution.
Anyhow, trials like these must, without fault, be spotless examples of correct rulings, for there to be any resemblance of unpolitical justice
You may not have expressively said that, but literally in every post or news article about Russian war crimes, there’s always at least one person pointing at NATO and in particular US war crimes.
No doubt did that happen, yet you don’t see Russian state attorneys trying the US in court. And they can, international criminal law can be ruled in in any country of the world. Now why don’t they or the Chinese do it? For one, because they don’t want to poke the US too much. But if that isn’t the case, the only explanation left is that they don’t want to be open to the possible repercussions of being held to whataboutism themselves.
No why does it happen in the US or NATO countries? Simply because the executive power holds very little sway on the legal proceedings of the attorney General offices, at least when compared to Authotarian countries such as Russia or China.
Honestly my point isn’t “but America war crimes too!!!” Which would probably be fair to call whattaboutism, but pointing out that if americ adoesnt recognise other countries courts or international courts, then why should they expect Russia to care about what their courts say?
No one expects Russia to accept any foreign rulings. However as the Nuremberg trials proved, acceptance can be enforced by the stronger party. And in the likely case this doesn’t happen, the court ruling can mean a lot less foreign diplomacy leeway for the US government when it comes to dealing with Russia. Also a US ruling would extend to every country that has extradition treaties with the US. So anyone proven guilty would effectively be a fugitive in a third and the most powerful and influential third of the world. Look at what the international criminal courts ruling already caused. Putin didn’t attend the meeting of the BRICS+ countries in South-Africa. The same would go for Brazil who also accept den-Haag.
Even if the leadership of a country would like for any proven criminal to appear in their country and would like the justice department to not move, in any and every democratic country, they couldn’t without causing a major breach of constitution.
Anyhow, trials like these must, without fault, be spotless examples of correct rulings, for there to be any resemblance of unpolitical justice
Fair point well made.