Stallman pieces raises interesting issues but they are neither new neither correctly asserted.
Courts do not need the Hague Treaty today to enforce foreign judgments, in every legal system there is allready mechanisms peculiar to the system that allow for enforcement of a foreign court decision.
So the Hague treaty is not this big and awful new thing (at least it is not new)that is going to change the world and promote the idea of a single world order or law or even government as I have read in some threads. On the contrary the idea is rather to organize the mess that is the fact that our legal systems are different are more and more in contact with each other because of globalization and certainly because of the non-geographical nature of the Internet.
Now the Hague treaty consequences or the courts rules used to day to assert jurisdiction and more importantly to enforce judgments are not as simple and scary as Stallman describes them. Rather than being those big ugly mechanic things that according to him will make any stupid judgment passed abroad for something displayed on your web site, they allow for plenty of exceptions and subtilities that will avoid the stupid result that he contemplates. And the court deciding to enforce a foreign judgment will be a domestic court (i.e. a US court)that will take into account both the foreign and the US interest before enforcing the judgment.
I do not know much about Stallman but this is really scapegoatting about nothing, lack of research on the subject.
Slashdot Mirror
sure but he is wrong on the legal principles, simple but wrong
Stallman pieces raises interesting issues but they are neither new neither correctly asserted. Courts do not need the Hague Treaty today to enforce foreign judgments, in every legal system there is allready mechanisms peculiar to the system that allow for enforcement of a foreign court decision. So the Hague treaty is not this big and awful new thing (at least it is not new)that is going to change the world and promote the idea of a single world order or law or even government as I have read in some threads. On the contrary the idea is rather to organize the mess that is the fact that our legal systems are different are more and more in contact with each other because of globalization and certainly because of the non-geographical nature of the Internet. Now the Hague treaty consequences or the courts rules used to day to assert jurisdiction and more importantly to enforce judgments are not as simple and scary as Stallman describes them. Rather than being those big ugly mechanic things that according to him will make any stupid judgment passed abroad for something displayed on your web site, they allow for plenty of exceptions and subtilities that will avoid the stupid result that he contemplates. And the court deciding to enforce a foreign judgment will be a domestic court (i.e. a US court)that will take into account both the foreign and the US interest before enforcing the judgment. I do not know much about Stallman but this is really scapegoatting about nothing, lack of research on the subject.