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mytailorisrichlast Saturday at 6:23 PM1 replyview on HN

You and I are subject to the law. This is not voluntary and it will be enforced against us by the state.

On the other hand, countries are sovereign. They are not subject to "laws", and if they do it is on a voluntary basis. Ultimately it boils down to military and economic strength for a country to be able to stand its ground and do what it wants. We never left this behind, this has always been the case.

From the replies it seems that commenters believe that countries are subject to "laws" the same way that they are...


Replies

nemomarxlast Saturday at 6:35 PM

The goal of the rules based international order was to subject countries to laws, yes. Those laws could have been (and were various times in the past) enforced by larger organizations in the same way the state acts on citizens. Westphalian Sovereignty is not any more real than the rules based international order - clearly Venezuela's sovereignty did nothing for them here.

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