At an international level, the United
States has rendered this network of global
laws impotent by defying the UN Security
Council to declare war on Iraq. It follows
hot on the heels of Bush's refusal to
ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse
gases.
Ironically, as the US acts with the sole
authority of the force of its Coalition
of the Willing, it is still happy to cite
the Geneva Convention to complain about
the totally unjustified treatment of its
invading forces.
Through its actions and the selective
appeal to international conventions the
US is writing a new legal doctrine of
convenience: the Law as Rhetoric.
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Alongside strategies like embedding journalists,
continuous polling and selective release
of information, the Rule of Law has become
just another tool in the battle for the
hearts and minds of the people.
This approach takes legal relativism
to a new level, with the authority of
Law directly linked to one's power to
ignore it or invoke it as one sees fit.
And what does this have to do with this
week's Cole
Royal Commission? Well, behind the
headlines of widespread illegality by
building unions are two underlying truths.
First, the overwhelming bulk of illegal
acts were breaches of the Howard government's
industrial laws, specifically designed
to prevent industry-wide bargaining. The
illegality Abbott flays at the CFMEU is
illegality entirely of his own making.
Second, the findings are a direct product
of a process that set out to catch union
officials, discount evidence against employers
and sideline the genuine concerns with
safety and employer rorts. Sixty million
dollars to fulfil a specific, political,
brief.
My point? There is nothing absolute about
the findings against the CFMEU; rather
they are the expected outcome of a process
based not on law, but on raw political
power.
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And the outcome is yet another law-enforcement
agency, protecting the Monk's political
friends and harassing his enemies.
The righteousness of Bush and of Abbott
have a common flavour, it is the certainty
of the powerful. Any notion of 'The Law'
is an ass in their hands. Maybe the Anarchists
have won after all.
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