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Alright, well, in a second we have to talk about something that is not funny at all,
so just to avoid starting off the video on a complete bummer, here’s a picture of Brian
from Real Engineering’s evil twin brother, Griam from Meal Bingineering.
And that’s a real photo right there, I know because I photoshopped it myself.
Okay, so, in December of 1988, Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York was tragically
taken down by a terrorist bombing as it flew over the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland,
killing the 259 people in the plane, and eleven more on the ground.
Ultimately, this crime, which mostly killed Americans, led to a trial of two Libyans,
which took place in the Netherlands, but actually in Scotland, or more specifically an area
of the Netherlands that was temporarily made part of Scotland.
Why?
Well, welcome to the wacky, wild world of international law.
So, when this very bad thing happened, a joint investigation by the US and UK concluded the
culprits were two alleged Libyan security agents who had worked for Libyan Airlines,
and so, as is tradition when you think someone did a murder, the US and UK respectively issued
an indictment and warrant, demanding that Libya extradite the accused to the UK and
US.
Now, there were a bunch of different pieces of international law at play here: the US
justified the extradition under the Organization of American States Convention on Terrorism
of 1971, and the UK justified it under the European Convention on the Suppression of
Terrorism of 1977—but despite both of those treaties having very official sounding names,
Libya responded with a big “uh, yeah… no” mostly relying on the succinctly-named
1971 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation.
But this video isn’t actually about any of the specifics of any of those treaties,
because the truth is, the reason we got this weird Scottish trial in non-Scott land isn’t
because of the stringent guidelines and intricacies of international law.
And that’s because, like the tooth fairy or the YouTube Community Guidelines, international
law is, well, kind of fake.
Most of international law is less law law and more a bunch of guidelines in a trench
coat pretending to be law.
You see, international law is fundamentally weaker than domestic law, in large part because
domestic law is ultimately enforced through the state’s police power—a super cool,
super fun legal concept that refers to the government’s monopoly on legal violence
or force.
But there isn’t really a police power in international relations—a country can order
another country to do something, but if they refuse to do it, you can’t exactly arrest
them.
I mean, you could try, but that country probably has a military that won’t be too happy with
that and then you might have a war on your hands, which historically, world leaders not
named George Bush tend to avoid when possible.
The UN Security Council originally was supposed to kind of fix this and be the world’s police
power, but as you may have noticed, the UN Security Council gets along about as well
as the Real Housewives of New York, and also is about as effective at enforcing international
law as the Real Housewives of New York.
So, how did this happen?
Well the US and UK started off by going to mommy, aka the UN, which passed UN Security
Resolution 731 in January of 1992, which called for Libya to extradite the suspects, but they
did it under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, which lacks any real enforcement mechanisms,
so it was basically the equivalent of asking Libya pretty please with a cherry on top.
When asking nicely somehow didn’t convince Muammar Gaddafi, they put on their big boy
pants and passed a new resolution, 748 in March 1992, under Chapter VII, which has more
oomph behind it.
If Libya said no, UN member nations were supposed to enact all these sanctions against Libya.
And Libya did said no, so the UN did the sanctions, which didn’t work, so in November 1998,
the UN decided the reason the sanctions weren’t working was “not enough sanctions,” so
they passed another resolution, 883, with more sanctions, which shockingly didn’t
work either, until finally the US and UK had used up all the sanctions in their sanctions
purse, and after checking their other pants to see if they’d left any sanctions in them,
they decided to figure out a more creative solution.
And so, as you may remember from the beginning of this video three minutes ago, the US and
UK prosecutors proposed a Scottish trial in the Netherlands.
Why?
Well, it was the same reason why my writer Adam is banned from Medieval Times: politics.
There’s no law that says that if a plane is bombed, the trial is done by the country
the plane was over, but in the Netherlands.
So why was it the Netherlands?
Well, because Libya had suggested before that they might be open to a trial there, because
the Netherlands is a neutral country and because the Libyans loved The Fault In Our Stars.
And why a Scottish trial, and not American?
Well, because US prosecutors were likely to request the death penalty, which soft-hearted
liberal soy boys like Muammar Gaddafi wouldn’t be okay with.
After the UK and US managed to get the Netherlands to agree to this, the UN passed a new resolution,
1192, endorsing the idea, which on the British side, made the trial legal under the United
Nations Act of 1946, a British law that said that UN resolutions can be enacted as an “Order
in Council.”
On the Dutch side, a joint treaty between the UK and the Netherlands was signed that
temporarily put Camp Zeist, a former US Air Base in the Netherlands, under the law of
Scotland for the duration of a three-judge, non-jury trial, plus any appeal.
And on the Libyan side, the Libyans agreed to extradite.
In sum, it was a triumph for justice, diplomacy, and international law.
Well, except for the part where a ton of people now think the guy they convicted for life
was innocent.
But let’s not focus on that; let’s focus on this picture of Brian’s other brother,
Triam from Seal Racketeering.
Triam may be illegally selling seals, but you know who isn’t?
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