Steve Palmer [00:00:01]:

All right, Lawyer talk off the record on the air today to talk about international law. Sort of the heavy topic, or one of the heavy topics of the time.

Troy Henricksen [00:00:13]:

Every headline.

Steve Palmer [00:00:13]:

Every headline, yeah. There was this. Some people might call it an extradition and arrest of the head of Venezuela, Maduro. Some might call it.

Troy Henricksen [00:00:24]:

I think I've seen invasion.

Steve Palmer [00:00:26]:

Invasion. Some might call it something else. But there's a lot of discussion about international law. I even saw who's the new mayor of New York, Mandani.

Troy Henricksen [00:00:35]:

Mandani said it violated federal international law.

Steve Palmer [00:00:38]:

Federal international law. Look, for those who watch this regularly, they know I'm not taking any political positions on this. I'm not going to tell you what if I think it's right or wrong, what I think about that's irrelevant. But I think we can talk a little bit about international law. Yeah, they teach that in law school. Internet. There's an international law class in law school.

Troy Henricksen [00:00:58]:

I don't think so anymore.

Steve Palmer [00:00:59]:

I didn't take it.

Troy Henricksen [00:01:00]:

I don't think there is an international law.

Steve Palmer [00:01:01]:

I remember looking at a big book that said international law.

Troy Henricksen [00:01:05]:

We don't get taught anything on it at all.

Steve Palmer [00:01:07]:

So this is going to be more of an esoteric conversation. International law in this context, and maybe any other context is meaningless.

Troy Henricksen [00:01:15]:

Yeah.

Steve Palmer [00:01:16]:

And what do I mean by that? I don't mean it's meaningless from the sense that it doesn't. It might inform some of how we operate as a general policy matter, we being our country. It might inform how other countries interact with other countries, and it might inform some of those how we function. But law as enforced, generally speaking, comes at the end of a gun barrel. Yeah, I hate to say that, and I hate to be overdramatic. I don't mean to be overdramatic, but a law is not relevant if it can't be enforced.

Troy Henricksen [00:01:52]:

Yeah.

Steve Palmer [00:01:54]:

So the United States of America has law. You can find it, by and large, in something called the United States Code. And sadly, I will give you an opinion on this. Sadly, you can find a bunch of it in the code of federal regulations, because we now have these regulatory bodies that promulgate rules and those become laws, and people get. But anyway, you can find it in the code books that usually come under the category of some federal government entity, so Congress, some agency, whatever. And you have other laws in states, and you have other laws in cities and local jurisdictions. I mean, those are the laws that govern how we operate within the United States of America. We can't be prosecuted.

Steve Palmer [00:02:39]:

We being our government, the United States can't be prosecuted for violating international law. So really, I think when you hear that it's political.

Troy Henricksen [00:02:47]:

Yeah, that's it.

Steve Palmer [00:02:48]:

These are political discussions. And I'm not discounting that. I'm not discounting that at all. Because we still have to interact as a country with other countries. And you can have an argument on one side about how we have to be strong and establish our place in the world, as well as our part of the world, and whether somebody else on the other side, if we don't fulfill that, somebody else will. I mean, where you take the other position that we should be isolated, you could take a position that we should get along nicely with the United nations, with NATO or whatever else. But those are political discussions, by and large, I think. And we don't operate like the laws here in Ohio, where we function, are not governed by anything international.

Troy Henricksen [00:03:28]:

No.

Steve Palmer [00:03:29]:

So international law is, I think, a bit of a misnomer.

Troy Henricksen [00:03:33]:

Yeah. And I always thought about that whenever I think the Palestine, Israel stuff is popping off and they're like, we have indictments for both their leaders. And I was like. Everybody was like, this is great. And I was like.

Steve Palmer [00:03:44]:

I mean, we being like, Palestine has indicted Netanyahu or vice versa.

Troy Henricksen [00:03:50]:

No, no, no. The international, like, court, whoever they are, that they indicted both their leaders. And I'm like, my guys, that's not gonna. What are they gonna do? Go to Israel, execute, like an arrest warrant? Like one. Who's even doing that?

Steve Palmer [00:04:02]:

Right. Right now, there are exceptions. We have these other things called treaties. And treaties have sort of a unique place. So we can have extradition treaties with other countries. Some we don't have extradition treaties with. So, you know, everybody knows of. There's always stories of people getting.

Steve Palmer [00:04:22]:

Forget the student. I think he went over to. Was it China, Korea, and he stole a poster or whatever.

Troy Henricksen [00:04:27]:

Oh, yeah.

Steve Palmer [00:04:27]:

You know, it's like international law didn't help.

Troy Henricksen [00:04:32]:

No.

Steve Palmer [00:04:32]:

Right. So it's like unless you have an enforcement mechanism, international law doesn't really get there. Now, treaties are different. So, you know, we can agree that we have a treaty or an agreement with another country to abide by certain rules. And that may be a little bit different, but it's not like the United States government is going to. Or Trump or anybody acting on behalf of the military or otherwise in this. What do you want to call it? Extraction? Because I don't want to use it. I don't want to use a charged term in the removal.

Steve Palmer [00:05:01]:

Extraction, takedown, arrest, invasion, whatever it is. Nobody's going to prosecute the United States internationally for that conduct. Not saying it's right, not saying it's wrong, but I'm saying there's not going to be an international prosecution. So we can lay international law through.

Troy Henricksen [00:05:18]:

Us and hopefully we can do follow up on Maduro's case as it keeps developing. I think that'll be interesting.

Steve Palmer [00:05:23]:

That will be interesting to actually see the prosecution. Now, that said, there was an indictment out of New York and it was in 2020, so not the current Department of Justice, but a different. It's all the same Department of Justice, but other players apparently thought enough to indict this guy and charge him with drug trafficking crimes. And to that extent I can comment. Right. So if I were representing Maduro, I would say give me the discovery. I want the evidence. I want to see what evidence you have against my client.

Steve Palmer [00:05:51]:

I want to see if you can prove the case that you've alleged.

Troy Henricksen [00:05:54]:

Yeah.

Steve Palmer [00:05:54]:

And it may go to court and it may go to trial. Time will tell. All right, Lawyer talk off the record, on the air. If you got questions about this or any other topic, shoot them to us right there in the social comments. Or you can go to lawyertalkpodcast.com and shoot me an email there.