Reply #81: To Me, Sir, It Seems A Step Forward That The U.N. Accepts Preventing Atrocity As Grounds For Action [View All]

[The Magistrate]

This was a hurdle that could not be crossed not so long ago in the late Balkan killings, when President Clinton finally acted without assent from the United Nations at a time when many considered it no matter at all for international law what a sovereign state did to its citizens. That this episode is certainly marked with selective outrage does not alter the value of the precedent: it will not in future be possible for a government to argue its abuse of its citizens is nobody else's business, and something no one has a right to interfere with. It will be valuable in future that this has been established.