The left worries about national sovereignty too
At Opinio Juris, Julian Ku points out that the complaints about international encroachment on national sovereignty from parts of the political left often echo those heard from the political right. Indeed, the substance of the arguments–the lack of transparency and accountability in international mechanisms–is almost indistinguishable. What differs are the particular targets: the political right ...
At Opinio Juris, Julian Ku points out that the complaints about international encroachment on national sovereignty from parts of the political left often echo those heard from the political right. Indeed, the substance of the arguments--the lack of transparency and accountability in international mechanisms--is almost indistinguishable. What differs are the particular targets: the political right directs its fire largely at the United Nations and the International Criminal Court; the left at the WTO and, to an extent, the IMF and World Bank.
At Opinio Juris, Julian Ku points out that the complaints about international encroachment on national sovereignty from parts of the political left often echo those heard from the political right. Indeed, the substance of the arguments–the lack of transparency and accountability in international mechanisms–is almost indistinguishable. What differs are the particular targets: the political right directs its fire largely at the United Nations and the International Criminal Court; the left at the WTO and, to an extent, the IMF and World Bank.
This dynamic suggests that people are, unsurprisingly, focused on ends rather than means. Elements of the political right sees the UN and the ICC as constraining American freedom of action in the security realm and objects on those grounds. Parts of the political left in turn believe the WTO and other international trade mechanisms constrain U.S. labor and environmental practices. As these camps search for arguments, they alight on the undeniable dysfunctionalities of their respective targets, rarely acknowledging that the international mechanisms they favor suffer from similar defects.
The recent kerkuffle over UN regulation of the internet represented something of a departure from this well established pattern: left-leaning tech types who, I would guess, think of themselves as UN supporters suddenly came alive to the potential hazards of an organization comprised of many states that do not share our precise values and in which the United States does not always have the veto power.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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