It is well to ask whether there is such law or whether what passes for law is, in fact, something quite different. We can agree, I trust, that to be called law, a body of commands, whatever other characteristics it must have, should be knowable in advance and uniform in application.
Experience suggests that the international law of armed force and human rights is neither.
Perhaps the best known examples in recent history were the U.S. invasion of Grenada, our support of contra forces fighting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, American leadership of the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia, and the effort of a Spanish magistrate to have General Pinochet extradited from the United Kingdom for trial of human rights violations in Chile. Moreover, international law may have unfortunate effects on U.S. Courts. Grenada's government was overthrown in a coup. There followed an end to elections, freedom of the press, other political freedoms, and habeas corpus. A large number of political prisoners were taken and the new regime engaged in rapid and heavy militarization with the assistance of arms and advisers from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and other nations of the Communist bloc.