What's Law Got to Do with It?

The Bush administration has come under heavy fire for turning its back on the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, and other highly publicized multilateral initiatives. America is abandoning its traditional commitment to the rule of law in international relations, charge critics at home and abroad, and is recklessly bent on "going it alone." _Unilateralist_, _hegemonic_, _imperialist_--barely a day goes by without such indictments being leveled at some new American policy. "We shall pursue our efforts toward a humane and controlled globalization," French foreign minister Hubert Védrine recently declared, "even if the new high-handed American unilateralism doesn’t help matters." Some worry that the United States is compromising the majesty of international law and its shining promise of a more peaceful world in the century ahead, while others mutter that the United States is taking on the aspect of an empire--and a few in America gleefully embrace the idea. "We are an attractive empire, the one everyone wants to join," declares _The Wall Street Journal_’s Max Boot.

As a matter of historical accuracy, the talk of empire is ill-founded. The United States is not an empire, nor could it conceivably become one. The term _empire_ implies more than simple cultural dominance or preeminent military power. It applies to states that _use force to occupy and control a group of other states or regions_. The conquered states, robbed of autonomy and political independence, become colonies, provinces, or territories of the imperial power. Taxes are levied, laws are imposed, soldiers are conscripted, governors are installed--all without the consent of the subjugated state. Foreign policy, including all military alliances, trade agreements, and diplomatic relations, is dictated by the imperial capital. Rome was an empire. Napoleonic France, 19th-century Britain, and the Soviet Union were empires. But _empire_ simply does not accurately describe America’s relationship with France or Germany or Japan, or even with more dependent states such as Canada, Israel, or Guatemala.

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