n a now infamous moment in television history, former US President Richard Nixon, three years after leaving office in scandal, was asked by interviewer David Frost if the US President could commit illegal acts. Nixon replied: “If the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
With those twelve words, Nixon dismissed the core idea of republican government and the very essence of the rule of law. For Nixon (and far too many today), some people and some institutions are simply above the law. And not only are they not bound by the law that binds the rest of us, but we must follow their orders. Afterall, this is the divine right of kings.
Almost a half century later, Nixonian ideology is alive and well.
In the wake of the Security Council adoption of resolution 2803 last month (a resolution that shocked legal analysts and human rights defenders around the globe for its blatantly colonial content, and about which I have written previously) even critics of the resolution have thrown up their hands to declare “oh well, the Security Council adopted it, so now its law.” In other words, to paraphrase Nixon, “if the Security Council does it, that means it is not illegal.”
Nonsense.
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