Sovereignty, the Border, and the Law of Nations
Posted in Politics by Richard Adams
Securing one's borders is the responsibility of sovereign states in the modern world. Those that are unable or unwilling to do so are failing in their responsibilities as nations. Along the border between the U.S. and Mexico, the people who are failing to keep law and order are not the Americans. According to the logic of the law of nations, therefore, the U.S. is well within its rights to inform the governent of Mexico that if it is unable or unwilling to secure its own border the U.S. will do it, and, while doing so, it may assert the right to enter what is formally (although not, as the facts make clear, in fact) Mexican territory. A century ago, that logic would have been clear to just about everyone in the U.S. government. Nowadays, few, if any, recognize it. Not sure that change is all to the good.
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In addition, states that do not enforce their own borders, and allow migration flows, or in a different case, allow terrorists to operate with impunity by de facto granting them sanctuary status, are positively estopped from claiming the right to be free from outside encroachment upon their "territory." No rights exist for sovereigns, without preexisting obligations. And if those obligations are not met, then there is not a sovereign power.
Lebanon for instance. It allows Hezbollah to carve a third of her territory away from it and create a state within a state. Even as it did the PLO after "black September" in the early '70s.
Wouldn't it be better for the region if the fiction of Lebanon were ended, and the territory simply carved up among the adjacent powers. Then Syria's hand, {as well as the Iranian hand behind that} in sponsoring terror within what is still called Lebanon would be clear.