Lefty Lawyers' Wank-Fest As Marshall Islands Sues Nuclear States In ICJ

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (pop 68,000) has decided to sue the nine nuclear weapons states in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Why?

Because Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states that:

“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

The Marshall Islands’ claim is that the five nuclear states who have signed the NPT: USA, Russia, China, Britain and France have violated Article VI by “not pursuing nuclear disarmament negotiations in good faith” and “instead, taking actions to improve their nuclear weapons systems and to maintain them for the indefinite future”.

Despite not actually being signatories to the NPT, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel are also included in the suit.

The claim is that signing the NPT makes these states legally liable to attempt to enact all of its articles. They must therefore be bound by the ICJ to do so.

Hmm … could there possibly be a flaw in this line of reasoning?

Oh yes, that’s right … international law and the ICJ are largely a fantasy of international socialists and pompous, hubristic lawyers like Geoffrey Robertson.

Read about the structure and function of the ICJ, in particular, its jurisdictions and it is immediately obvious that any authority the ICJ has is derived from either:

1.      The UN Security Council being able and willing to enforce its judgements.

2.      The mutual consent of both parties in a dispute to be bound by the Court’s decision.

The Court has in the past been used to provide a layer of legal legitimacy to diplomatic actions, such as its first ever case, in which Britain sued Albania over two of its ships hitting mines in the Corfu Channel. The ICJ found in favour of Britain and awarded damages of £843,947. Of course, the Albanians refused to pay, which the British always knew they would. However, Britain was also holding 1,574 kg of Albanian gold, which they kept.

The Court can be useful if both parties intend to employ it in good faith, such as in the Gulf of Maine maritime border dispute between the USA and Canada.

However, one party may simply withdraw its consent after a verdict it doesn’t like. This would then require the UN Security Council to implement some enforcement action, such as diplomatic and economic sanctions, or even military action.

Of course, if the party which withdraws its consent, or otherwise chooses to ignore the ICJ’s decision is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council with veto powers (the five nuclear weapons states listed above), or one of their allies, or even one of the other four nuclear armed states, a contrary ICJ decision is effectively unenforceable.

A case in point is Nicaragua’s complaint against the USA resulting from the United States’ continuing support of the Contras. The Court found in favour of Nicaragua and awarded reparations against the USA, which predictably ignored the judgement.

An easier route is for states to withdraw or modify their declaration of consent to submit to ICJ arbitration. An example is Australia, who modified their declaration in 2002 to exclude disputes on maritime boundaries. Clearly, this was to prevent an impending challenge from East Timor, who gained their independence two months later.

Even in the case of the many international treaties which contain a compromissory clause providing for dispute resolution by the ICJ, if one party simply decides to ignore the Court and that party has sufficient military or economic strength, there is little in practice which can be done.

What do the Marshall Islands and their lawyers believe will be the outcome of their suit?

Have a look at the list of the 15 current ICJ judges. Although it’s not compulsory within the ICJ articles, there has always been one judge from each of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (there cannot be more). So, I suppose it’s diplomatically compulsory. India also has a judge on the current panel. I think we can guess which way these 6 judges will vote. The concept of judicial independence from their respective governments is laughably naïve, especially in the cases of Russia, China and India. The British, French and American judges may possibly vote against the policy of their current governments if they were appointed by the previous ones, but in this matter, I doubt it.

Even if all 9 of the remaining judges find in favour of the Marshall Islands’ claim, does anyone believe this action will achieve anything meaningful?

In reality, the USA, Russia, China, Britain and France have violated Article VI from the moment they signed it. This facile statement was never anything other than “do as I say, not as I do”; arch diplomatic hypocrisy. But did anyone bar the most naïve internationalist expect otherwise? India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel aren’t even signatories to the NPT, so what the Marshall Islands and their lawyers believe the ICJ will say in relation to them is beyond me.

Is their goal to use the Court as a vehicle for exhibiting the nuclear powers’ hypocrisy? This hardly requires the ICJ.

In reality, this whole charade is an exercise in legal and academic onanism. A bunch of international socialist lawyers, self importantly strutting about, debating or rather, preaching on the wrongs of nuclear weapons, all at taxpayers’ expense.

Because who is footing the bill for this pseudo-intellectual wank?

The taxpayers of the countries who fund the ICJ. Even if the Marshall Islands pays a significant amount of the cost of its suit, look at its economy. The majority of its GDP is US foreign aid, although much of that could be viewed as compensation for the nuclear tests. Any ICJ legal bill will be paid by the American taxpayers.

I’m not entirely convinced the Marshall Islands should even be an independent nation. Material steps toward independence began under that great and decisive American leader, Jimmy Carter. Why the Reagan administration allowed them to follow through to actual sovereignty, I’m not sure. Perhaps there was a more cynical reason. If the Marshall Islands were formally annexed by the United States, it may have opened the way for more law suits and even larger compensation over the environmental damage from the atomic tests on Bikini Atoll.

Of course, whatever the ICJ says, it will be ignored by any state with nuclear weapons. In the event the ICJ decides to hear the suit AND finds in favour of the Marshall Islands, some sanctimonious, delusional wanker will probably write an article for the Guardian, in which they will claim that Britain is now not only morally, but legally obliged to take meaningful steps to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. Some middle class twat might start a petition on change.org.

But nothing meaningful will happen as a result. Nor should it.

What would you think if your government abrogated its right to maintain a nuclear arsenal to a court which “as a whole must represent the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world”?

Thankfully, the majority of Western citizens still expect our governments to defend our own civilization against the vastly more corrupt and oppressive civilizations of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and their so called “legal systems”.

A ₤43,000 Fine For Fare Evasion - It's How He Was Caught That Should Worry You

I’m writing about what appears at first reading to be, in the grand scheme of things, a trivial matter, in part because I’m interested in the psychology of the offender, but primarily because of what it reveals as to what can be deduced about our behaviour from the data collected on us by governments and corporations.

A highly paid executive in a City of London fund manager has repaid ₤43,000 in assessed fares he is alleged to have evaded over a five year period. That’s $AUS 77,000.

Apparently, his modus operandi was to board the train at his no barrier, country home station of Stonegate in East Sussex, then tap off with his Oyster Card when he reached London, where he was charged the maximum city fare of ₤7.20. By some means, he then avoided tapping his card through the entry barrier in Cannon St, London for the return journey each evening, knowing there would be no problem at Stonegate.

I take this to be the allegation, because the one way fare from Stonegate to London is quoted in the article as ₤21.50. Twice that, minus the ₤7.20 he paid each morning gives an amount of ₤35.80, which he allegedly evaded each day. If you divide 43,000 by 35.80, you get 1,200 ie. 5 x 240 days = 5 x 48 working weeks over 5 years. The ₤43,000 is actually ₤42,550 in fares, plus ₤450 in legal costs.

After reading the above linked article, you might have thought (as I initially did): “The bloke must be mad. Why admit to something like this?”

But an article in his local paper explains the circumstances more clearly. Coming through the barrier in London, a ticket inspector noticed his fare flash up as ₤7.20, indicating he hadn’t tapped on at the commencement of his journey.

He was then identified by some means (we’re not told how, or indeed, why he allowed himself to be). Presumably, inspection of his Oyster Card account revealed the same maximum, default fare of ₤7.20 being paid every day, with nothing on the way home. It was subsequently found that the last record of his purchase of a season ticket from Stonegate (prior to being questioned) was November 2008. He then purchased another season ticket in November 2013, a few days after being questioned at Cannon St.

A Southeastern Trains spokesman told The Guardian that it was the recent purchase of another season ticket which aroused their suspicion. Hence the allegation of five years of fare evasion.

Southeastern then calculated the amount of ₤43,000 based on five years of ₤21.50 single fare journeys, twice a day.

Despite at no stage formally admitting the allegations and despite the actual amount being about half this had he been buying season tickets, the man eventually reached an out of court settlement in which he paid the full amount of the claim, thus effectively admitting the allegations. The fact that not only was the matter settled out of court, but was done so with a confidentiality agreement, implies the man was represented by an experienced (and presumably well paid) solicitor, as would only be sensible in such circumstances.

What should concern people most about this matter is not the fare evasion (which I actually find amusing), but rather how he was discovered. The ability of people, or more likely, automated algorithms to interrogate large amounts of behavioural data and draw conclusions which can result in accusations of wrongdoing is something we need to actively guard against.

That the conclusions were almost certainly correct in this case is not the point. If you allow your behavioural data to be collected, how can you control, or even know who (or what) has access to it and how it will be selectively analysed and interpreted? If you care about your liberty, either keep collection of your behavioural data toa minimum, or carefully manage which aspects of it are collected.

By this last phrase, I mean allow the information to be collected which tells the story you want people to read. Being totally “off the grid” requires a lot of unnecessary commitment and is suspicious in itself.

Many government departments and corporations eg. banks and utility companies know where you live. The tax department knows where you work as well. If you’re travelling to and from work, what’s the harm in using a card which tracks payments and journeys? If you use Paypass on your credit card to buy your lunch in the food court next to your office, so what? It’s not providing details about your behaviour which cannot be deduced from other information. In fact, it’s better to do it and look like a normal citizen.

Now, suppose you want to go somewhere and keep it private. Buy a paper ticket. Pay with cash. It’s pretty simple.

The man in this case was caught because he was foolish. He was prepared to do something wrong, but didn’t make the effort to inform himself as to how he could be discovered.

The default fare of ₤7.20 is clearly unique and thus a device to allow inspectors to spot people who haven’t tapped on. The person who thought it up is not dumb. That tells you that having a lot of ₤7.20s on your Oyster Card account is evidence you don’t tap on regularly. If you live outside London, the most reasonable conclusion is that you’re not buying a ticket at your home station. So, if you’re going to do this, use an unregistered card!

His registered card allowed the rail corporation to flag him in a database, possibly linked by his address. Then he probably used a credit card to buy a season ticket from Stonegate after a five year hiatus. An algorithm detected “abnormal activity” and sent a report to some cunt with nothing better to do. Next thing, he gets a demand for the contrived amount of ₤43,000: “Pay us double or go to court.”

It’s reasonable to infer that he gave in and settled Southeastern Trains’ claim in full due to being threatened with prosecution and / or a civil claim and the attendant public exposure.

Manuel Cortes, leader of the TSSA complained that:

"There seems to be one law for the rich and one law for the poor when it comes to criminal prosecution. The rich seem to be able to walk away and claim secrecy while the poor get hauled up in front of the local magistrates court and publicly ridiculed. This guy can buy silence, but that isn't offered to most people who are caught fare dodging."

Yes, he bought silence and avoided prosecution, at a heavy price. In fact, public transport companies seem to have turned this into a nice little earner, blackmailing all manner of people with inflated fines to avoid court, although the “middle class youth worker” in this linked article should also have been fined ₤43,000 just for being a complete prat.

So what are you saying, Manuel? That taxpayers’ money should be wasted prosecuting everyone caught, even though most will end up paying less than the offered “settlement”? Where will the money to pay your wage claims come from then?

The Stonegate man paid an amount which could never have been recovered in a civil claim, had it proceeded to court. There is simply nothing other than circumstantial evidence suggesting wrongdoing. A criminal prosecution could not have succeeded. There is no evidence of fare evasion on the London network, as he pays the maximum fare. It is impossible to prove that the man even travelled on a train outside of London on all those days during the period in question. In a criminal matter, with the burden of proof on the prosecution, he would not have even needed to make a statement.

However, this apparent practice of the public transport companies blackmailing offenders into paying exorbitant fines under the guise of “legal costs” to avoid prosecution needs to be stopped. It is genuinely mediaeval. Just issue a fine, record the offender’s details and be done with it. That would stop the blackmail. Serial offenders could be prosecuted.

Finally, two questions I asked myself about the psychology of the Stonegate fare evader:

Firstly, why did he allow himself to be identified in the first place? He’s in a high paying position at a fund manager, where a criminal prosecution could not just damage his reputation, but get him fired. But he decides to evade train fares, using an Oyster Card registered to his name and address as part of his scheme. Then, when eventually challenged, he had no plausible defence.

“Are you making an accusation? There has been no fare evasion. You just saw me pay. I don’t know what happened. The gate at the other end was open. I tapped my card. I didn’t notice it hadn’t registered. I was in a hurry.”

A little prior research on London stations with no barriers would have made his story plausible. An unregistered Oyster Card would have given the ticket inspector no chance to dispute the story.

Secondly, since he’d already shelled out for a lawyer, why pay the ₤43,000? Even had he been sufficiently fearful of a civil claim, why not have his solicitor earn his fee by at least trying to talk the amount down?

The civil claim is actually the dangerous one, since the burden of proof on Southeastern Trains is not as onerous. His Oyster Card account history is pretty damning if combined with any CCTV at Stonegate, or local residents embarrassingly called as witnesses to prove he lives there. Probably better to settle the matter quietly, given he’d already been foolish enough to provide his accusers with a trail of evidence.

Any halfway decent solicitor should have been able to prevent a criminal prosecution. Apart from the possibility of CCTV at Stonegate, there is no evidence he even caught a train from there. Even had he been on CCTV on previous occasions, where is the evidence he did not buy a ticket, or have a seasonal ticket, now expired and discarded? He does not need to prove he did: the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt he did not.

Bizarre behaviour all round. Definitely one for the Idiots section of RTBB. He repeatedly took a low probability risk many times, making no effort to hedge the severity of the consequences of being caught, despite the possible damage. And this bloke is managing large amounts of other people’s money. Need you ask where the GFC came from?

No Take Away Alcohol After 10pm? Bullshit!

I hadn’t paid much attention to NSW’s new liquor laws until I tried to buy a bottle of wine on the way home after having to work back late. I had left a shade before 10pm, catching the train home. I walked into a bottle shop attached to a still open pub, expecting to be able to buy a bottle of wine, so I could have a glass or two with my late dinner.

“I’m sorry, sir. We can’t serve you after 10pm. It’s now 10.10. We’re closing up.”

A (mostly) law abiding citizen cannot buy take away alcohol after 10pm, from any outlet in the entire state? Are you fucking kidding?

The government’s explanatory web page shows its new plan of 1.30am lockouts and 3am last drinks at “large CBD values”. Small bars and restaurants are exempt, as they should be.

I don’t really have a problem with the government enforcing stricter licencing regulations upon big hotels, beer barns and nightclubs. Those are the venues where trouble ie. violence tends to occur. That’s because the types of people who tend to be violent when intoxicated are (surprisingly) disproportionately the types of people who frequent big hotels, beer barns and nightclubs. Letting large groups of potentially violent morons drink into the early hours of the morning is certainly a recipe for trouble, particularly as drinking for that length of time often involves stimulants such as amphetamines.

I agree with the new, “risk based” licence fees, given that such high risk venues consume a disproportionate amount of police (and probably health) resources. If those extra licencing costs are passed onto consumers through higher drink prices after midnight, that’s a reasonable implementation of a user pays philosophy.

But where is the connection between these demonstrable concentrations of drunken violence and take away liquor sales after 10pm?

This is just thoughtless, knee-jerk policy, attempting to appear to be acting strongly and decisively to appease the bleating, middle class voters.

Policy which restricts the rights of citizens to freely engage in commercial, recreational or social activities must be based on clear evidence. This is part of the basis upon which citizens allow the state coercive power.

How does an adult buying take away alcohol from a suburban bottle shop between 10 and 11pm (the previous closing time) demonstrably increase the level of alcohol related violence?

I asked the guy at the bottle shop if they had noticed much effect.

“Working an hour less a night costs me about $100 a week. The owner’s not too happy about the $9,000 a week drop off in sales either.”

There you go. No decrease in violence … just a decrease in economic activity, employment and the reasonable amenity of citizens.

Good work, Mike Baird and Troy Grant (actually it was Barry O’Farrell and George Souris who brought this law in). You’ve certainly improved the wellbeing of your constituents ie. your employers with this policy.

If you’re as angry about this as I am, do what I did: write to Premier Mike Baird and responsible minister, Troy Grant. The law will only change if enough citizens make their opposition known.

Parents Who Intentionally Have Disabled Children: How Should A Liberal State React?

A person in a free society will naturally want to explore and understand their identity, to try to be the person they feel they really are, or can be.

Parents usually want to raise their children to share many elements of their cultural identity.

But what if the “person you want to be” is a result of delusions caused by a mental illness, even if the person doesn’t agree they are mentally ill? What if this “self-actualisation” would result in self  harm and becoming a burden on society?

What if the “elements of their cultural identity” the parents want to give their children are actually disabilities?

When should a Liberal society override people’s freedom and forcibly prevent such actions? How far should it go in this prevention? In which circumstances should it punish people?

There are cases where the answer is clear. If the parents have grown up in families exhibiting generations of incest, which they now believe is normal or part of their “culture”, we should still remove the children and deal with the adults through the legal system, although the upbringing of the adults may give reason for mitigation. Just because incest is a cultural norm in certain highland tribes of New Guinea, doesn’t mean relativist arguments re harm translate to modern societies.

Female circumcision is common in parts of East Africa. That doesn’t mean we should allow it here because it’s part of “religious” or “cultural identity” … and any adults involved in such an act should be vigorously prosecuted.

What if two deaf parents deliberately have a deaf child, or conceive a child knowing there is a 50% chance it will be born deaf? If it’s their own child, conceived through natural means, is this even immoral? Many would say “yes”. If so, should it warrant intervention from the state?

What if they are lesbians and must actively seek out a deaf sperm donor to achieve their goal? That’s not hypothetical: an American couple, Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough actually did this, twice. Disturbingly, they are both mental health professionals.

According to the article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Duchesneau and McCullough are part of a subculture in which deafness is the defining and unifying feature of their culture and does not view deafness as a disability.

The first part is quite reasonable. The second is delusional, to the point of causing actual harm.

Duchesneau stated that “she grew up feeling that she was flawed”. Clearly she is not the only one and clearly this type of experience during formative years has caused many deaf people to form and mutually reinforce the delusion that deafness is not a disability in order to avoid feeling negatively about themselves.

We should not pander to clearly absurd assertions in order to protect some people’s fragile self esteem.

Unfortunately, deafness IS a disability, caused in many cases by a genetic flaw. Hearing is a very important and highly successful evolutionary adaptation. Deaf people are not some alternative genetic line. There is something wrong with them: they can’t hear. That’s not something you should deliberately cause your children.

Loony, far left, identity political arguments along the lines of: “They are part of their own culture which understands them” are false. The children are part of the wider world, the overwhelming majority of whom can hear. Had they not been born deaf, they could have joined it, yet still had meaningful relationships with their parents. But Duchesneau and McCullough have deliberately prevented their children from ever being fully part of that world. They will never hear speech, music, or the 360 degree soundscape of normal life in the world around them. That, in my opinion, is at best insanity. At worst, it is criminal child abuse.

But now they have had the children, who are already deaf, what can, or should a Liberal state do?

This is not a case of ongoing abuse. The issue regarding either intervention or sanction is that the damage was done at conception and there is no evidence suggesting any further harm (other than whatever rubbish the children’s parents may fill their heads with – but they don’t need to be deaf to do that).

What sort of sanction, if any, would be of benefit to society?

Should the state remove the children from their crazy parents? What would that achieve? Where would they be placed? With another deaf couple? With a couple who can both hear, but know how to sign? What would be the point, other than a demonstration of state authority?

Should the parents be charged? With what? Child abuse? Intentional endangerment of a child? Maybe, but then what happens to the children?

What should the state’s attitude be toward parents deliberately or recklessly conceiving children with other genetic abnormalities, such as congenital blindness? What about cystic fibrosis?

Deliberately conceiving a disabled child places an extra burden on the state, as all disabilities require extra support services. That, coupled with the harm to the child should be sufficient for society to want to prevent these nutters from doing it again.

My natural feelings are that people like this are insane and need to be prevented from having more disabled children.

But how to stop them?

What if there is a court order, or law preventing people from deliberately conceiving children with disabilities? What if people such as Duchesneau and McCullough ignore it? Are they then to be prosecuted? Jailed? Should they at least be made to compensate society for the fiscal burden they have deliberately placed on the rest of us? Could you allow such children to sue their parents for maintenance and punitive damages for reckless or intentional infliction of distress and harm?

Given that it’s often not certain that a genetic mutation will be passed on, how to construct such a body of law? Would it only apply in cases where the probability is sufficiently high as to render the conception reckless? How would that probability be quantified in cases of complex, spectrum type disabilities?

The above assumes the parents are sane, but mental illness is a spectrum and culpability can sometimes be a grey area. Should people who deliberately conceive children with disabilities instead be scheduled under the Mental Health Act?

How could that ever work in practice? Would they have a court appointed medical guardian for the rest of their childbearing years? Would they necessarily be deemed insane for the entire period? What if they recanted?

How could such a guardian prevent a future pregnancy anyway? More importantly, what could be done once a pregnancy occurred? Would the guardian force an abortion? Why would this reasoning then not extend to people who discover they are carrying a severely disabled child, but want to carry it to term?

Now we’re so far from Liberalism that a few deliberately created, disabled children may be preferable to the totalitarian alternative.

This post is so far, mostly a series of questions because like me, you’re probably thinking that there’s something wrong about people deliberately conceiving disabled children, but can’t see any way to prevent them from doing so which does not descend into a draconian legal labyrinth.

I sort of like the principle of allowing deliberately conceived disabled children to sue their parents, but as soon as you start thinking how it would work in practice, it begins to lose its appeal.

Who would actually bring the lawsuit? What would be the test for material harm and suffering? How disabled do the children have to be? Could the right extend to children who are identified as disabled in utero? That would be an interesting test for litigious and religious America.

Certainly, children should be able to sue their parents for sexual abuse, if a criminal conviction has been recorded. But what about suing for neglect, or abandonment? Perhaps, again, only in the event of a criminal conviction.

So, lots of questions, but few practical answers. However, we need to be asking these questions outside of philosophy courses, because these aren’t hypothetical situations. As described above, people are doing these things now. Some problems are best solved by groups, rather than a few people reasoning from a set of premises. This is an example of such a set of problems.

Here’s one along the same lines which is more clear cut, since it involves intentional self harm:

Despite there being nothing physically wrong with her, 58 year old Chloe Jennings-White wants to have an operation to render her permanently disabled. Although no sane doctor in the UK, where she was born, or the USA, where she now lives with her wife, would perform such an operation, she claims to have found a foreign doctor who will sever her sciatic and femoral nerves.

Firstly, any doctor who would perform such an operation on a clearly mentally ill person should not only be permanently deregistered, but charged and jailed.

Chloe Jennings-White’s mental illness has been described as part of the wider class of body integrity identity disorders, in which sufferers feel for example, that they are in the wrong type of body, or that they do not need the use of their legs, or they should have a limb amputated. Some people proceed to self harm, some do not.

How should a Liberal state respond to assertions by Chloe Jennings-White that she has “tried to have accidents so she could lose the use of her legs” or that she intends to travel overseas to have the disabling operation?

Should she be scheduled on clear evidence of attempts to self harm and the intent to do so again?

Yes, she should.

In practice, that does not necessarily mean forcibly institutionalising her. It could mean appointing a court ordered guardian, who has the power to admit her into psychiatric care. This is typically what happens in cases of anorexia.

In Chloe Jennings-White’s case, she should also have her passport cancelled and be placed on a border watchlist.

Some readers are probably thinking that if she succeeds in rendering herself disabled, she should not receive disability support. But she’s probably already on it, on the grounds of mental illness.

Suppose someone ignores a sign and dives into shallow water, making themselves para or quadriplegic. It’s their own fault and recklessness is usually treated the same as a deliberate action in judging culpability. But they still get disability support services. Chloe Jennings-White is less culpable than the reckless diver, because her actions result from mental problems. So, it's difficult to say she does not deserve disability support.

Frankly, her wife is partly to blame for enabling this behaviour. How to manage this mental illness clearly requires specialist knowledge, however I suggest that behavioural therapy along the lines of: “I know you can walk, so get up, do your own shopping and cooking, or you’ll starve” might be an experiment worth trying.