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Harm From The Hague
wfrp01 writes: "Richard Stallman has posted a new essay entitled Harm from the Hague, which presents his take on international enforcement of extra-national court decisions. 'The Hague treaty is not actually about patents, or about copyrights, or about censorship, but it affects all of them. It is a treaty about jurisdiction, and how one country should treat the court decisions of another country. ... Or suppose you publish a parody. If it is read in Korea, you could be sued there, since Korea does not recognize a right to parody.'"
YOU GOTTA FIGHT...FOR YOUR RIGHT...TO PARODY!!!!
Enter cranked guitar effects as necessay...
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
Scenario:
.cx, .tv) pass laws such as justifiable homicide in response to corporate espionage, or maybe patenting the entire idea of the telephone, or making it illegal to register a domain name.
German company A patents process "bob" in Germany. American company B patents process "bob" in America. B sues A for patent infringement in America, and wins, enforcing it in Germany against B. B sues A in Germany for patent infrigment and wins, enforcing it in America against A.
The end result: no one can use process "bob", and they both go out of business.
This sounds like a great idea to me, bring it on.
I particularly like Stallman's idea of "shopping for laws", where corporations find countries who will sell anything (cough christmas island, tonga,
When the first American gets cained in Pancake Ohio in the town square because they were sued in Singapore for spitting gum on the sidewalk, the fit is gonna hit the shan.
I can't wait.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
So do I have to put a click-through EULA on all my sites, stating that only US/EU citizens may view them without waiving their rights to sue me?
Then if I end up parodying someone in Bourkino Faso, and they sue me for the parody, I can counter-sue for license violation? Of course, in Bourkino Faso, the penalty for parody could be a flogging, whereas a licensing violation penalty here in the US is a fine or probation.
I guess the only way to make that scheme work is become the resident of my own autonomous, sovereign nation where I can effectively control the local laws.
Yup. It's a big ol' mess, that's fer sure.
bukra fil mish mish
-
Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
You know what you are so right. Screw the world, lets disband UNICEF, High Commission for Human Rights, High Commission for Refugees, UN Environment Programme, and Food Aid.
The United Nations is actually fairly ineffective at preserving the peace. Just look at Kosovo and the Congo for recent examples. They were moderately successful in Bosnia, and quite effective in Timor. But. It is in their humanitarian efforts were they truly shine.
Of course, I could be all wrong, they might be a fearsome fighting force, when they use their black helicopters, operating out of secret bases in the Pacific Northwest to take over the United States and establish a true world government.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Now that it's become fashionably leftish to oppose "globalization" as mindlessly as it was once pursued, it would be nice if protesters would acknowledge Jesse for keeping the lonely faith through the '80s and '90s.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Through the WTO, GATT, NAFTA, MAI the goal is to reduce the power of elected government to a minimum while increasing the power of corporate control over public life. I think we need a world government in place to check the power of multinationals, and to set level playing field in the marketplace. Unfortunately, one can't have a consistent set of rules in a marketplace a government to oversee and regulate the market. It's clear to me that completely deregulated world markets will lead to global monopolies unlike anything we've seen yet, and this will lead to a catastrophe for the citizens of the world -- never mind democracy as an institution.
So, to me the issue is not should we implement a world government, but HOW? As far as I'm concerned it must be democratically elected, is must fairly represent all of the nations' interests throughout the world, and it should restrict itself to matters of commerce. Currently the WTO is an unelected body which holds the contents of it's meetings in secret. If the world business community continues to control international regulation through secret organizations like the WTO it doesn't matter one bit that you may have elected your officials to power; their ability to write laws in accordance with your (and citzen's wishes) will be circumvented by these unelected bodies for the purpose of "free trade" making local and national government moot.
That's the potential future I fear.
--Maynard
Of course, I could be all wrong, they might be a fearsome fighting force, when they use their black helicopters, operating out of secret bases in the Pacific Northwest to take over the United States and establish a true world government.
:)
Those of us in the Pacific Northwest have never seen any black helicopters and have no idea what you are talking about..
(*fnord*It's okay guys, I think he believed me!*fnord*)
Yetti?.. what Yetti?
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
In China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Iraq, and Sierra Leone. By extension, it is illegal everywhere. Individuals running Freenet Servers will be interned in re-education camps.
It doesn't matter *why* the law gets written.
What matters is what gets codified into law by the treaty, and what the unexpected side-effects of that law may be.
Laws get applied according to the need of the lawyers. There are a lot of dramatic cases of this. For example, Operation Rescue (radical anti-abortion group) was prosecuted under RICO statutes -- a law created to control organized crime. Similarly, Blue Cross Health Insurance is being sued under RICO because they control how physicians deal out healthcare to their clients. Appropriate? Maybe (depends on your politics), but certainly not what was intended by the original authors in the '70s.
So yes, you should be worried.
bukra fil mish mish
-
Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Again, your views of how "elected government" works is biased. I am assuming by the way you write that you're an American citizen, and thus your idea of a free and (reasonably) fair government are highly skewed.
Got Rhinos?
A global government would be elected. This is virtually impossible, considering the variety of nations that would be participating. We can't even get an accurate election in the United States.
A global government, if elected, would be elected by the people. More likely, it would be elected by governments or corporations.
A global government would have something resembling the Freedom of Information Act, which makes their affairs and paperwork public.
A global government would be democratic and capitalist. Should I go on?
Got Rhinos?
Countries trying to solve their disagreements by forming one government? That's like a man and a woman who hate eachother trying to solve their problems by getting married.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Ah, but with this Hague treaty it can become more of a way of life... ;)
It won't be long until a national government is formed. Some bastarized hybrid of the Articles of Confederation, British common law, and other organizations will eventually take over for the purpose of "clarifying" matters of national jurisdiction, among other things. If you've been paying attention over the past few years, you've probably seen it coming.
The America of the future will have national laws that override local ones, national courts to interpret the law, national economic unions to do "what is best for the nation" (instead of for a person's native state), national military forces (the Federalists are working on this), a national police force (i.e., the Canadian Mounties), and a council of probably-unelected national leaders who are concerned about "the greater good."
What gets lost? Individual rights and community rights. Virginians will no longer be able to act as Virginians, because of how it might affect a Rhode Islander, a New Jerseyite, a Pennsylvanian or a Marylander.
I don't know about you, but I'm not looking forward to it.
[Apologies for the butchered state adjectives]
Visit the
The author of the article forgets one key component of enforcing a judgment: jurisdiction. He makes it sound as if all one has to do is go to France--for example--sue someone there, and bring the judgment to any Hague Treaty signatory to get the judgment enforced. However, the Hague Treaty is about jurisdiction, too. It has detailed rules governing how courts can establish jurisdiction over foreign parties.
There are two things which prevent judgments from being enforceable in foreign countries. The first is the simple idea of sovereignty: France cannot send its police over into the United States to seize the bank account of a person who has a French judgment against him. France has no power to enforce its laws outside its own borders (and the Hague Treaty will not change this). The second thing is related to sovereignty: a French court does not have jurisdiction to resolve questions of my rights unless I am within France's borders or have established some kind of contact with France that makes France's jurisdiction over me reasonable. In other words, if I am not within France's borders, France does not have the sovereign power to decide my rights, because France's sovereignty stops at the border. However, theoretically, if I have established some kind of sufficient contact with France (opening a store there, or selling goods over the internet specifically to people in France), then it sould be reasonable for France to decide my rights (even if they cannot force me to show up) and have that decision, or judgment, be enforceable.
Things do not work this way now. Right now most countries generally have laws governing jursidiction over foreign parties. For example, French law says that if you are a French citizen, you can obtain a judgment over a foreign party for a dispute that arose anywhere in the world just by bringing the case in French court. Then god help that foreign party when they show up in France and the French citizen gets to enforce that judgment. Further, in the United States we give respect to foreign judgments based on the principle of comity. Comity is basically reciprocal respect: the U.S. will enforce French judgments if France will enforce U.S. judgments. (Note that in practice, right now, the U.S. has more respect for French judgments than France has for U.S. judgments.) However, this principle of comity is limited by our notions of due process of law. The U.S. will not enforce judgments that fail to meet a minimum standard of due process protections. For example, I doubt if a U.S. court would enforce a judgment from a secret, Iranian military court (where people are tried without even being allowed to be present to mount a defense or confront their accusers).
The Hague Treaty will change all this for its signatories. First, of all, it provides general rules for jurisdiction. Thus, France would not be able to keep its law that any French citizen can sue any foreign party in a French court and get an enforceable judgment. Each country would have to provide reasonable rules for jurisdiction. Second, the principle of comity (as between signatories) would drop out of the picture. In the U.S., we would already have adequate assurance that a foreign judgment meets our standards of due process. France would be forced to give the same respect U.S. judgments as the U.S. gives to French judgments.
The upshot is that the article ignores the concept of jurisdiction. Just because a French business obtains a judgment against me in France, even under the Hague Treaty, that judgment is not automatically enforced unless it is valid, i.e., the French court had jurisdiction over me. If the French court did not follow the Hague Treaty rules on jurisdiction, which should be fair to all countries, then that judgment will not be valid (think of it as an ultra vires exercise of sovereignty) and it will not be enforceable in other Hague signatory nations.
For those of you with access to Westlaw or Lexis, you can read more about the concept of jurisdiction and the Hague Treaty in a Cornell Law Review article, Jurisdictional Salvation and the Hague Treaty, by Professor Kevin Clermont, published in issue 1 of Volume 85 (November 1999). This is the legal cite: 85 Cornell L. Rev. 89. (You can also read my article for some background on the law of jurisdiction in the U.S., 85 Cornell L. Rev. 1742 (Sept. 2000).)