VOLUME V, CHAPTER 11, SECTION 3
Between Nations, Why There Is No Law
The previous two sections turned the lens on the contest over scarcity inside one nation. But scarcity does not stop at a nation's border, nations contest it among themselves just the same. This section pulls the lens up to the space between nations, a space with no higher lawmaker standing above it at all. Start with the most fundamental question of all, why has there never truly been law between nations.
One. A Most Solemn Document, and a Question No One Ever Answered to Its Face
In 1945, representatives of fifty nations signed, one after another, in San Francisco, and the United Nations Charter was formally born. The next day, newspapers around the world carried the same message, humanity had finally gained a supreme rule to restrain war. It was one of the twentieth century's most spectacular acts of collective faith, hundreds of millions of people believing that, from then on, there would be rules, courts, and restraint between nations.
But there was one question that not one of the more than eight hundred delegates present that day ever answered to its face, who would enforce this charter. This is not nitpicking. The charter's language is solemn, and its purposes beyond reproach, but the life of law has never sat in the solemnity of its words, it sits in the strength behind its enforcement. Inside a nation, when a person breaks the law, police come to his door, a court summons him, and a prison's gate truly closes behind him. Between nations, when a nation tears up a treaty, who comes to its door, what prison could possibly hold a nation. If a single permanent member of the Security Council casts a veto, the whole resolution stalls right there. This is not an accidental gap, it is the answer written directly into the structure itself, in one line, international law has no supreme enforcer.
Two. This System Shows Its True Bottom the Moment It Meets Real Power
The concept of international law is not new, the West generally treats the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 as the starting point of the modern international order, and from then on, the great powers of Europe used treaties to bind one another, and over the centuries that followed, from the laws of war and diplomatic immunity to human rights conventions and trade rules, the system grew denser and denser. The League of Nations, early in the twentieth century, was the first attempt to restrain war through a supranational body, and the United Nations in 1945 was the second, larger in scale and finer in structure.
But each time, the system showed its true bottom the moment it met real power. The League of Nations stood helpless before several major acts of aggression, and by the outbreak of the Second World War it had quietly dissolved on its own. Since the founding of the United Nations, large-scale conflicts around the world have followed one after another, never once truly stopping. This is not a failure of enforcement, it is an outcome the structure itself decided, with no enforcer standing above the great powers, any piece of international law is only a suggestion on paper. Since the mid-twentieth century, several Western scholars of international relations have spoken of international anarchy, a term whose original meaning is not chaos across the world, but the absence of one thing, a government standing above every nation. They touched this layer of structure, but all of them started from the distribution of power, and none of them ever turned to ask the deeper question, what law actually is, nor connected international anarchy to the essential nature of domestic law itself. The ancestors had already spoken to this root thousands of years ago.
Three. Huang Zongxi's Line, Pushed onto the International Stage, Holds Just the Same
Huang Zongxi wrote, in On the Origin of Law, that up through the Three Dynasties there was public law held in common by all under heaven, and after the Three Dynasties there was only the law of a single family or a single house, made for private gain.
This is the law of a single family, not the law of all under heaven. Huang Zongxi, Waiting for the Dawn, On the Origin of Law.
This line was laid out in detail earlier. Set onto the international stage, the conclusion is just as clear. What is called international law is nothing more than the law of a single family, legislated by whichever nations happened to be strongest at the time, only that single family is no longer one emperor, it is one nation, or a handful of nations, that happened to win. The United Nations Charter of 1945 is the law of a single family, jointly legislated by the victors of the Second World War. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 is the law of a single family, legislated by the great powers of Europe once they had finished dividing their spheres of influence. Trace any international treaty down to its root, and it is the balance of power at that particular moment, set into permanent form. Huang Zongxi said the law of a single family harms the common people within a nation, pushed between nations, it harms whichever nations and peoples lack the strength to resist.
Four. Han Fei's Line, With a Few Words Changed, Is the International Version
Han Fei wrote, in The Five Vermin, that in ancient times people were few and goods plentiful, so they did not fight, and that later, as population multiplied again and again while goods grew scarce, contest naturally arose. He set down the least forgiving line of all.
Today people fight over them, not out of baseness, but because goods are scarce. Han Fei, Han Feizi, The Five Vermin.
People today fight not because they are baser, but because goods are scarce. This root, which he spoke of within a nation, becomes the international version with only a few words changed. A nation with plentiful output and abundant resources, able to provide for itself, has no need to take from others. Taking always comes because a nation's own resources fall short, or because it believes taking is faster than producing. A nation with insufficient output, or with military strength greater than its neighbors, will inevitably reach outward, and whatever name it hangs on that reaching hand, trade, aid, or treaty, underneath it all runs the very same root.
Five. Laozi's Eight Words Are Every Taken Nation's Circumstance
Chapter 9 of Laozi's Daodejing holds just eight words.
A hall filled with gold and jade, no one can keep it safe. Laozi, Daodejing, Chapter 9.
Originally a warning about a person accumulating wealth, its weight does not lessen at all when set between nations. When a nation has abundant output, full granaries, and a flourishing culture, and yet no military strength to match its riches, these eight words become a prophecy of its fate. The Northern Song was one of the most economically advanced dynasties in Chinese history, estimated by later scholars to have accounted, at its height, for more than a fifth of the entire world's economy, its capital at Kaifeng flourishing, and yet it prized letters over arms and let its military strength grow weak, and in 1127, the Jingkang Incident saw two emperors carried off captive to the north, ending the Northern Song then and there. The late Ming was much the same, the south of the Yangtze richer than anywhere else under heaven, and yet its defenses had fallen into disrepair, and the Manchu cavalry rode through the pass and, within a few years, the realm changed hands. These eight words of Laozi are the shared circumstance of every nation ever taken, and this run will return to see it again and again.
Six. Put the Three Roots Together, and the First Foundation Stands Firm
Between nations, there has never been a lawmaker standing above the great powers, and never an enforcer standing above them either, there is only the balance of strength, and that balance set into permanent form at each moment in history, and treaties, agreements, and the international order are nothing more than the written packaging of that act of setting in place. Huang Zongxi's the law of a single family speaks to whom the law was made for. Han Fei's scarcity breeds contest speaks to where the taking comes from. Laozi's a hall filled with gold and jade, no one can keep it safe speaks to why some are taken from at all. Three ancient teachings, from three angles, carry this matter all the way to its bottom.
Those Western scholars of the twentieth century touched this same root too, but they only touched the structure, never the root beneath the structure. They spoke of international anarchy, without ever turning to ask, why can order exist within a nation and not between nations. The answer is simple, behind domestic law stands a government holding a monopoly on legitimate force. On the international stage, there is no such government, there never has been, and there is no sign of one to come.
Seven. The Position Set by This Section
This section sets the thirty-fourth layer. Between nations, there is no supreme lawmaker and no supreme enforcer, and what is called international law is the law of a single family, legislated by whichever nations were strongest at the time, its root in strength, not in justice. This is a position, not a condemnation, it speaks up for no one and excuses no one, it only lays the matter out as it truly stands, and lets the reader see it clearly for himself.
That a nation reaches out and takes at some moment is its position deciding that it will take. That a nation is taken from at some moment is its position deciding that it is easily taken from. Seeing this logic clearly is worth more than any single moral verdict.
The next section turns to the several depths of international conduct. Since there is no law between nations, how far can a strong nation actually go against a weak one, is there only the open kind of taking, or are there deeper, harder to see forms as well. The deepest of these, this run will give a new name of its own, occupying a position. Carry this layer, that there is no supreme enforcer between nations, and walk into the next section.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.