Icc Judge Guillou Loses All Us It Accounts After Maga Sanctions [fr]

Washington has brokered a peace deal that it’s very proud of and expects a Nobel Peace prize for if it holds. At this point, we’re dealing with one man’s ego more than any policy position of the United States.

I actually don't mind tyranny on some level if I can't do anything against them. it just feels good having the mask of righteousness & honor fall off so that the world can see the ugly, unvarnished, hypocritical beast under the makeup.

I think Russia deserves a lot of credit. It started long before Crimea. They had a military incursion into Georgia, secured a pro-Kremlin dictator in Belarus, nearly got away with the same in Ukraine and some other neighboring republics - all while buttering up the EU with energy deals. I think the European and American (non-)response to that was the death knell of that "rules-based" worldview.

While Russia acted belligerently, China played the long game to cement its geopolitical influence and make itself "too big to fail".

If there was a domestic inflection point in the US and in the EU, I think that was actually the housing crisis / the sovereign debt crisis around 2007-2009. That really undermined the optimism about supranational institutions.

SCOTUS and the lower courts now selectively use history and tradition to skirt legislative texts to do whatever they want. For instance, the Second Amendment is clear and absolute that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and arms did not used to be forbidden when traveling — much less from airports, which did not exist, or even nautical ports. Yet the federal government prohibits carrying arms on airplanes, or even around the airport. Even my combo utility knife and bottle opener, with blade removed outside the airport, got confiscated recently.

Obviously, the usual rules do not apply to Trump (but do apply to similarly situated Democrat presidents).

And for something more quotidian, Florida state judges usually just do whatever the hell they want, summary-judgment and other rules be damned. And it's a rarity to get any appellate relief: the appellate courts typically affirm per curiam — that is, without any explanation whatsoever, on account of which the litigant is prohibited to seek further review in the Florida Supreme Court!

We are now a government of men, not of laws, and illogic and injustice reign supreme.

> Continuing to bet on the ICC is continuing to bet on a dead horse.

That would be quitting by the ICC's supporters in the middle of the game. It amazes me how many non-neo-fascists embrace surrender and quitting like it's wisdom; like they are troops who actually listen to wartime propgandists like Tokyo Rose. The other team has scored; so you quit? Your app hasn't reached it's full market; so it's pointless and you stop now? On that basis, you'd never get started. (Particularly, the idea that lack of full success now is evidence of hopelessless - that is bizarre.)

The narrative of reactionaries has long been similar to the parent: It's childish idealism, it will die soon, etc. They find the narrative effective: it has emotional power - the childish part, the alarmism - and connects to that traumatic side of people that says ideals are pointless, that a hard cold world is 'reality'. It's power is when people believe it. Maybe the reactionaries actually believe it, and that's why they don't support those projects.

For example, I've read that the EU is on its last legs, may not last more than ____, since I started paying attention to such things. Even today, liberal democracy, after centuries of outstanding success, spreading around the world and being the most politically and economically (and militarily) successful political system in human history - is called a childish dream that will never work.

> It reflects the optimism of the 1990s’ newly unipolar world, one in which a rules-based international order —guaranteed by the United States—would reign supreme.

I think that also reflects that reactionary narrative - the idea that it's just a pipedream of a momentary trend; they also say universal human rights, which is written into the 18th century US Declaration of Independence and Constitution (which had their own predecessors), is just a fantasy of post-WWII liberalism. Some of these arguments are laughable.

The optimism long predated the end of the Cold War. After WWII, for example, aggressive warfare was successfully (not perfectly) outlawed, and institutions such as the UN, World Bank and IMF, EU (its ancestor), and many more were created after WWII - and by people who experienced the hard, cold aspects of the world than we are. And they weren't the start; they built on accomplishments of their predecessors.

Is Google required to essentially brick the phone of any sanctioned user using any of the international vendors here [2]? Certainly I would say the answer is at the very least "maybe," especially with how export restrictions have historically treated cryptography of all kinds.

It's really important to keep this in mind - it's not just about your ability to install unapproved apps, it's about basic levels of access to one's contacts, photographed memories, and fundamental ability to communicate. And this can be applied to anyone the increasingly-authoritarian U.S. government considers not even a threat, but politically expedient to paint as one.

[0] https://9to5google.com/2025/08/25/android-apps-developer-ver...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028

[2] https://www.android.com/certified/partners/

Sanctions abroad can't allow you to refuse service in this way. Depending on whether legal action is taken all these firms may be blocked from operating in Europe. There's also a specific blocking state further reinforcing this kind of thing.

Because of the blocking statue, contractual terminations because of sanctions are forbidden, so these firms still have to deliver. Apparently you may only void contracts due to terminations if you apply for a derogation from the European Commission.

The USA as we knew is long dead.

[0] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0211

This isn’t a debate around this international law, but international law broadly.

The ICC has no jurisdiction in America, Russia or China. Nor India, Pakistan, Indonesia and a host of other states. Most of the world’s population and most of the world’s economy isn’t subject to it. (Even those who are find convenient excuses for not enforcing its warrants.)

International law experts will agree these warrants are legal because per international law they are. The broader debate being missed is what role international law has to play in a multipolar world. Historically, and by that I mean Metternich’s peace, the law that matters in multipolar international politics is only that which the great powers agree to, and only so long as they agree to it.

Can I ask you why you approve of them? The only people they hurt are the average everyday citizens, the working poor in the target country. And while the naive expectation might be that the economic hardship would lead to them turning on their government and pressuring them to correct the behaviour that lead to sanctions, in turns out in practice it actually boosts support for their government as they come to see the sanctioning countries as their enemies.

It should be abundantly clear how much of a failure sanctions are from how easily Russia ignores them while continuing to invade Ukraine for three years and counting. North Korea has been subject to a virtually global embargo since 1950, a full 75 years at this point. It has not affected the position of their government in any way at all, nor did it prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons, but has rendered the people utterly desolate to the point of mostly not even having electricity. See also Cuba, Iran. I would really like to know what people see in this policy that seems to only exist to inflict undue suffering.

The fact that this would probably cost the governing party their rule is why the ICC has been failing. Elites love it. Ordinary people couldn’t be fucked.