The United States should submit to the jurisdiction of an International Court

My opponent has established the breaking of sovereignty as occurring when one country invades another; submitting to the jurisdiction of an International court is not the same as being invaded - any country that does this is still a country in every sense of the world, and therefore maintains its sovereignty, if not all of its independence. Even this substantial loss, however, is justified by your employment of Justice as a weighting factor - it is only fair that the United States of America, being a country, should have about as much independence as any other world power; if the court under question is such an important factor in world politics that we're even bothering to debate about submitting to it, then I can only assume that most of the other major world powers have already done so. (Incidentally, which one are we talking about, exactly? As far as I know, there are several. A full name would be very helpful, thanks!). In fact, not submitting ourselves to the same rules as our allies and enemies would be fundamentally unfair, and in fact violate justice. In any case, onto my opponent's arguments. Point 1.) The Failure of the Nuremberg Trials Sub-point a.I.) If the Nuremberg trials were a failure, my opponent has failed to explain what this had to do with the international nature of the trials - in fact, it seems likelier that all the countries involved wanted to hit the Nazis as hard as possible. Sub-point a.II.) While the Nuremberg trials were far from perfect, they were NOT a failure in terms of not not convicting all of the right people - in fact, even though certain criminals did not receive the death penalty, the trials are more often criticized for being unlawful, specifically because the allies were abusing their rights and had no jurisdiction in Germany, therefore violating Germany's sovereignty! http://www.umich.edu... It seems as if my opponent wanted the Nazis to be punished more harshly than they were, s/he could get his wish if the Allies had done exactly as they had done, but to a greater extreme. I would also like my opponent to describe the nature of his/her proposed national court. Would it be a German national court, which would behave unpredictably, possibly letting more criminals off? Would it be, worse yet a puppet-court that only pretended to be of German origin? That would just be an international court by another name. Or would s/he prefer a court consisting of members appointed only by one country? Which country, then? And how would anybody be able to guarantee that the one country would not go on a power trip even worse than the one the Allies actually went on? The point of a jury is to establish not only guilt, but degree of guilt - it is, in fact, possible to over-punish a Nazi, and the Allies were already accused of doing this. Sub-point b) same as above. I suspect the my opponent's counter-argument will allow me to zero in on the the issues I have with his/her position. Point 2.) A group of countries can just as easily gang up on another country without courts as it can with courts - see the War in Iraq. Of course, the country in question was far less powerful than Russia or China, but he result was the destruction of a country's national sovereignty because a few allies decided it was appropriate. In fact, an international court system LESSENS the probability of such an abuse of power: if the decision to strip a country of its sovereignty can only go through with a 2/3 vote, for example, then the likelihood of a successful scam is decreased. For example, say the United States, the Countries of Europe, and their Allies, could band together and claim that Russia or China was unethical, and that they needed to lose their sovereignty. This is put up to a vote. Less than 2/3 of the countries in the world agree with the United States et al, and nothing happens. No world chaos. If, on the other hand, more than 2/3 agree, then maybe the U.S. and its allies have a point. In any case, an organized system can always be insulated against hypothetical potential abuses, while the current situation, where we do not submit ourselves to a court, seems to bring us CLOSER to world chaos. Point 3.) This point strikes me as being very evocative of the States-Rights issues before and during the American Civil War, in which states claimed to have more control over their land than the government allowed, and that the government was curtailing their freedom (to own slaves). While I admit that the example is a very dramatic one, it also fits; any proper International Court that would meddle in the affairs of other countries to the extent of violating their sovereignty would only do so if there was a very good reason for it; believe it or not, the United States of America is NOT holy, and its authority is not unquestionable; it is a country, not some kind of divine amalgam of God and country. If we hold national sovereignty to be sacred, the much of our foreign policy during our short time on Earth was downright illegal and hypocritical, and that we deserve to be invaded by something a little more threatening than a court (in the name of Justice). If, however, we hold that sovereignty can be defied under certain conditions, then we must also realize that we are not above these conditions, lest we become the same as the countries that we fight. I'd mention Nazi Germany right about now, but I feel we've already broken Godwin's Law enough for one day.