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| Image: Flickr User - Brian Turner |
WASHINGTON, July 20 (Xinhua) -- The United States, which often has double standards on global affairs due to its "empire mentality", would be "the last country" that can lecture other countries about international law, a prominent American lawyer told Xinhua.
"We (The U.S.) expect other countries to comply with international decrees but we don't, because we don't feel like it," Bruce Fein, a veteran constitutional and international law attorney, said in a recent interview with Xinhua. "There is a double standard here. It's glaring."
Fein criticized the U.S. for refraining as much as it can from adhering to international instruments that would limit its ability to "act just based upon sheer power." "We figure why we should bind ourselves at all? We will just do whatever we want," he said.
An arbitral tribunal last week issued the so-called award on the South China Sea arbitration case unilaterally initiated by the former Philippine government. The U.S. has said that the award was binding on both parties and expected both China and the Philippines to comply with their obligations under it.
Noting that the U.S. hasn't ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Fein said, "How do we lecture on other countries on complying with UNCLOS? We aren't even a signatory ourselves."
In his analysis of the nature of the ruling, Fein said the tribunal was deciding "a political matter rather than a legal matter."
Read the full story at Xinhua
Quote from the story:
"The fact is that they can't point to an actual obstruction of freedom of the seas, so they just say you are endangering it because you have the potential to do it," Fein said.
PacificSentinel: Oh really, well that would be news to Vietnam, to whom it has happened repeatedly, the on going harassment of vessels from the Philippines, and lets not forget the USNS Impeccable episode from a few years ago, these are just a few I can think of, there are many more.