1 00:00:00,420 --> 00:00:03,160 This video was made possible by Ting mobile. 2 00:00:03,160 --> 00:00:06,340 Get $25 off your next phone plan by going to hai.ting.com. 3 00:00:06,340 --> 00:00:11,950 Alright, well, in a second we have to talk about something that is not funny at all, 4 00:00:11,950 --> 00:00:15,950 so just to avoid starting off the video on a complete bummer, here’s a picture of Brian 5 00:00:15,950 --> 00:00:20,000 from Real Engineering’s evil twin brother, Griam from Meal Bingineering. 6 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,440 And that’s a real photo right there, I know because I photoshopped it myself. 7 00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:29,170 Okay, so, in December of 1988, Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York was tragically 8 00:00:29,170 --> 00:00:34,109 taken down by a terrorist bombing as it flew over the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland, 9 00:00:34,109 --> 00:00:38,250 killing the 259 people in the plane, and eleven more on the ground. 10 00:00:38,250 --> 00:00:43,149 Ultimately, this crime, which mostly killed Americans, led to a trial of two Libyans, 11 00:00:43,149 --> 00:00:47,629 which took place in the Netherlands, but actually in Scotland, or more specifically an area 12 00:00:47,629 --> 00:00:50,859 of the Netherlands that was temporarily made part of Scotland. 13 00:00:50,859 --> 00:00:51,859 Why? 14 00:00:51,859 --> 00:00:55,739 Well, welcome to the wacky, wild world of international law. 15 00:00:55,739 --> 00:01:00,249 So, when this very bad thing happened, a joint investigation by the US and UK concluded the 16 00:01:00,249 --> 00:01:04,530 culprits were two alleged Libyan security agents who had worked for Libyan Airlines, 17 00:01:04,530 --> 00:01:09,450 and so, as is tradition when you think someone did a murder, the US and UK respectively issued 18 00:01:09,450 --> 00:01:13,770 an indictment and warrant, demanding that Libya extradite the accused to the UK and 19 00:01:13,770 --> 00:01:14,770 US. 20 00:01:14,770 --> 00:01:17,960 Now, there were a bunch of different pieces of international law at play here: the US 21 00:01:17,960 --> 00:01:21,659 justified the extradition under the Organization of American States Convention on Terrorism 22 00:01:21,659 --> 00:01:26,091 of 1971, and the UK justified it under the European Convention on the Suppression of 23 00:01:26,091 --> 00:01:31,320 Terrorism of 1977—but despite both of those treaties having very official sounding names, 24 00:01:31,320 --> 00:01:35,439 Libya responded with a big “uh, yeah… no” mostly relying on the succinctly-named 25 00:01:35,439 --> 00:01:39,549 1971 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation. 26 00:01:39,549 --> 00:01:44,439 But this video isn’t actually about any of the specifics of any of those treaties, 27 00:01:44,439 --> 00:01:49,500 because the truth is, the reason we got this weird Scottish trial in non-Scott land isn’t 28 00:01:49,500 --> 00:01:54,479 because of the stringent guidelines and intricacies of international law. 29 00:01:54,479 --> 00:01:57,630 And that’s because, like the tooth fairy or the YouTube Community Guidelines, international 30 00:01:57,630 --> 00:02:01,020 law is, well, kind of fake. 31 00:02:01,020 --> 00:02:04,960 Most of international law is less law law and more a bunch of guidelines in a trench 32 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:06,369 coat pretending to be law. 33 00:02:06,369 --> 00:02:11,209 You see, international law is fundamentally weaker than domestic law, in large part because 34 00:02:11,209 --> 00:02:15,620 domestic law is ultimately enforced through the state’s police power—a super cool, 35 00:02:15,620 --> 00:02:19,349 super fun legal concept that refers to the government’s monopoly on legal violence 36 00:02:19,349 --> 00:02:20,349 or force. 37 00:02:20,349 --> 00:02:24,489 But there isn’t really a police power in international relations—a country can order 38 00:02:24,489 --> 00:02:28,840 another country to do something, but if they refuse to do it, you can’t exactly arrest 39 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:29,840 them. 40 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:32,780 I mean, you could try, but that country probably has a military that won’t be too happy with 41 00:02:32,780 --> 00:02:36,400 that and then you might have a war on your hands, which historically, world leaders not 42 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:38,849 named George Bush tend to avoid when possible. 43 00:02:38,849 --> 00:02:43,120 The UN Security Council originally was supposed to kind of fix this and be the world’s police 44 00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:46,799 power, but as you may have noticed, the UN Security Council gets along about as well 45 00:02:46,799 --> 00:02:50,739 as the Real Housewives of New York, and also is about as effective at enforcing international 46 00:02:50,739 --> 00:02:53,099 law as the Real Housewives of New York. 47 00:02:53,099 --> 00:02:55,080 So, how did this happen? 48 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:59,819 Well the US and UK started off by going to mommy, aka the UN, which passed UN Security 49 00:02:59,819 --> 00:03:05,349 Resolution 731 in January of 1992, which called for Libya to extradite the suspects, but they 50 00:03:05,349 --> 00:03:09,459 did it under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, which lacks any real enforcement mechanisms, 51 00:03:09,459 --> 00:03:13,450 so it was basically the equivalent of asking Libya pretty please with a cherry on top. 52 00:03:13,450 --> 00:03:17,519 When asking nicely somehow didn’t convince Muammar Gaddafi, they put on their big boy 53 00:03:17,519 --> 00:03:24,129 pants and passed a new resolution, 748 in March 1992, under Chapter VII, which has more 54 00:03:24,129 --> 00:03:25,220 oomph behind it. 55 00:03:25,220 --> 00:03:30,689 If Libya said no, UN member nations were supposed to enact all these sanctions against Libya. 56 00:03:30,689 --> 00:03:35,129 And Libya did said no, so the UN did the sanctions, which didn’t work, so in November 1998, 57 00:03:35,129 --> 00:03:38,209 the UN decided the reason the sanctions weren’t working was “not enough sanctions,” so 58 00:03:38,209 --> 00:03:42,069 they passed another resolution, 883, with more sanctions, which shockingly didn’t 59 00:03:42,069 --> 00:03:45,920 work either, until finally the US and UK had used up all the sanctions in their sanctions 60 00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:49,250 purse, and after checking their other pants to see if they’d left any sanctions in them, 61 00:03:49,250 --> 00:03:52,969 they decided to figure out a more creative solution. 62 00:03:52,969 --> 00:03:56,519 And so, as you may remember from the beginning of this video three minutes ago, the US and 63 00:03:56,519 --> 00:03:59,870 UK prosecutors proposed a Scottish trial in the Netherlands. 64 00:03:59,870 --> 00:04:00,870 Why? 65 00:04:00,870 --> 00:04:04,879 Well, it was the same reason why my writer Adam is banned from Medieval Times: politics. 66 00:04:04,879 --> 00:04:08,510 There’s no law that says that if a plane is bombed, the trial is done by the country 67 00:04:08,510 --> 00:04:11,019 the plane was over, but in the Netherlands. 68 00:04:11,019 --> 00:04:12,500 So why was it the Netherlands? 69 00:04:12,500 --> 00:04:16,980 Well, because Libya had suggested before that they might be open to a trial there, because 70 00:04:16,980 --> 00:04:21,170 the Netherlands is a neutral country and because the Libyans loved The Fault In Our Stars. 71 00:04:21,170 --> 00:04:23,470 And why a Scottish trial, and not American? 72 00:04:23,470 --> 00:04:27,260 Well, because US prosecutors were likely to request the death penalty, which soft-hearted 73 00:04:27,260 --> 00:04:30,700 liberal soy boys like Muammar Gaddafi wouldn’t be okay with. 74 00:04:30,700 --> 00:04:35,670 After the UK and US managed to get the Netherlands to agree to this, the UN passed a new resolution, 75 00:04:35,670 --> 00:04:39,380 1192, endorsing the idea, which on the British side, made the trial legal under the United 76 00:04:39,380 --> 00:04:44,860 Nations Act of 1946, a British law that said that UN resolutions can be enacted as an “Order 77 00:04:44,860 --> 00:04:45,880 in Council.” 78 00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:49,410 On the Dutch side, a joint treaty between the UK and the Netherlands was signed that 79 00:04:49,410 --> 00:04:53,890 temporarily put Camp Zeist, a former US Air Base in the Netherlands, under the law of 80 00:04:53,890 --> 00:04:58,610 Scotland for the duration of a three-judge, non-jury trial, plus any appeal. 81 00:04:58,610 --> 00:05:01,630 And on the Libyan side, the Libyans agreed to extradite. 82 00:05:01,630 --> 00:05:06,290 In sum, it was a triumph for justice, diplomacy, and international law. 83 00:05:06,290 --> 00:05:10,080 Well, except for the part where a ton of people now think the guy they convicted for life 84 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:11,080 was innocent. 85 00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:14,080 But let’s not focus on that; let’s focus on this picture of Brian’s other brother, 86 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:17,280 Triam from Seal Racketeering. 87 00:05:17,280 --> 00:05:20,820 Triam may be illegally selling seals, but you know who isn’t? 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