Financial critics have
provided abundant data on the ways in which imperial creditors have extracted
onerous rents, royalties and debt payments from indebted countries and their
taxpayers, workers, employees and productive sectors.
What has not been examined
fully is the over-arching legal architecture which informs, justifies
and facilitates imperial wars, pillage and debt collection.
The Centrality of Imperial
Law
While force and violence,
especially through overt and covert military intervention, have always been an
essential part of empire-building, it does not operate in a legal vacuum:
Judicial institutions, rulings and legal precedents precede, accompany and
follow the process of empire building. The legality of imperial activity is
based largely on the imperial state’s judicial system and its own legal experts.
Their legal theories and opinions are always presented as over-ruling
international law as well as the laws of the countries targeted for imperial
intervention. Imperial law supersedes international law simply because imperial
law is backed by brute force; it possesses imperial/colonial air, ground and
naval armed forces to ensure the supremacy of imperial law. In contrast,
international law lacks an effective enforcement mechanism. Moreover,
international law, to the extent that it is effective, is applied only to the
weaker powers and to regimes designated by the imperial powers as ‘violators’.
The very judicial processes, including the appointment of judges and prosecutors
who interpret international law, investigate international crime and arrest,
sentence and punish ‘guilty’ parties are under to the influence of the reigning
imperial powers. In other words, the application and jurisdiction of
international law is selective and subject to constraints imposed by the
configurations of imperial and national power. International law, at best, can
provide a ‘moral’ judgment, a not insignificant basis for strengthening the
political claims of countries, regimes and people seeking redress from imperial
war crimes and economic pillage. To counter the claims and judgments pertaining
to international law, especially in the area of the Geneva protocols such as war
crimes and crimes against humanity, imperial legal experts, scholars and judges
have elaborated a legal framework to justify or exempt imperial-state
activity.
The Uses of Imperial
Law
Empire-building throughout
history is the result of conquest – the use or threat of superior
military force. The US global empire is no exception. Where compliant rulers
‘invite’ or ‘submit’ to imperial domination, such acts of treason on the part of
‘puppet’ or ‘client’ rulers usually precipitate popular rebellions, which
are then suppressed by joint imperial and collaborator armies. They cite
imperial legal doctrine to justify their intervention to repress a subject
people in revolt. While empires arose through the direct or indirect use of
unbridled force, the maintenance and consolidation of empires requires a
legal framework. Legal doctrines precede, accompany and follow the
expansion and consolidation of empire for several reasons.
