Morality or law?
‘I don’t need international law,’ Trump tells New York Times
Asked by the New York Times on Wednesday whether there were any limits on his global powers, President Trump replied: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
“I don’t need international law,” he added in an interview with four of the newspaper’s White House correspondents. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”
Trump’s interview, in which he also mentioned the success of his strike on Iran’s nuclear programme — he keeps a model of the B-2 bombers used in the mission on his desk — will be deeply disturbing to those who take a traditional approach to public international law. But others may take a more pragmatic approach to the new world order exemplified this week by his decision to abduct Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and put the former leader on trial in New York.
It’s a rewriting of international law that I analyse in this week’s Law Society Gazette. My column was written before Trump made his comments. But it analyses the exact approach he has taken.
You can read my assessment — headlined “Injecting morality into international law” — by clicking here, accepting or rejecting cookies and then clicking anywhere on the right-hand page.