Offenses against the law of Nations

An offense against the law of nations is in general, to either perpetrate, or injure, too many, or in too complicated the ways, to be managed, as a practical matter, through the ordinary processes of the criminal justice system. It is to direct, or through action or inaction, encourage the deprivation of rights of one group of individuals by another.

How many perpetrators, or victims, are enough to take us from the criminal justice system to prosecution as an offense against the law of nations? For the perpetrators it can be as few as five, to avoid having the perpetrators testify in defense of one another. For the victims, it can also be as few as five, too many to prove an offense by particular offenders.

Generally, such an offense is by or against foreign nationals. Offenses by domestic citizens or inhabitants against other domestic citizens or nationals , should in general be prosecuted as crimes in the criminal justice system.


1. Piracy or brigandage.
2. Invasion or conquest, especially violent. This can consist of one person entering a nation, without consent.
3. Enslavement.
4. Intentional environmental damage, (such as the salting of the fields of the Carthaginians by the Romans after the Punic Wars, or the destruction of the waterworks sustaining the marshes north of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258).
5. Oppression of women:
1. bazr, or female genital mutilation.
2. Requiring women to marry, especially very young ones.
3. Preventing women from controlling the number and timing of their children.
4. Preventing divorce by women.
5. Requiring wearing or headscarf or hijab by women.
6. Requiring wearing of excessively concealing clothing by women, such as burqas.
7. Restricting inheritance by women.
8. Forbidding women to work in certain jobs, or exercise certain freedoms.
6. Nonjudicial punishment, such as a lynch mob, driven by incitement.
7. Preventing speakers from being heard, which can be incitement.
8. Destruction of habitats, hunting of species to extinction.
9. Intimidation of business owners to paying a percentage of earnings, extortion, “protection”.
10. Selling or conveying of dangerous, perhaps addictive and mind-altering substances.
11. Shaming or threatening of nonconformists into changing their beliefs or behavior, especially “religious”.
12. Resisting or obstructing of compliance with legitimate treaties or laws, sedition.
13. Defamation of groups by untrue accusations.
14. Oppressive and unreasonable surveillance.
15. Disclosure of legitimate state secrets by righteous states.
16. Marketing or persuasion on untrue information, propaganda.
17. Destruction of evidence of things past, of past writings, relics, and accomplishments.
18. Controlling of identification needed to freely function.

Now it may be argued that enslavement arose out of the law of nations, or jus gentium, as practiced by the ancient Romans. That was true, then, but times have changed. The wars of war were also different then. Winning a war generally conferred the right on the victor to kill the people who lost, or least drive them out and take their land. (or kill them if they did not leave). Ancient wars from the era of about 1200 BC provide examples of this. Also introduced was the option for those about to be killed of accepting death or enslavement, of themselves and their descendants.

With the introduction of the standard of a just war came the distinction that it mattered who started it, and how many actually participated in it.

It is unclear who started the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Some claim it was by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. By the end, however, Israel controlled much more territory than was assigned to by the UN partition. The 1967 War was not unclear. Israel was attacked by a coalition of several Arabic nations, and by the end came to possess all the land west of the Jordan River, and the Sinai Peninsula. (It would later cede the Sinai back to Egypt).  It also now held several majority-Arab communities in the region. It has since effectively ceded one of them, Gaza, to its inhabitants. In other communities it has effectively recognized the claims of Arabs to small parcels of land, defined by traditional practices of fencing, tilling, and grazing. If present trends continue, Israel will enclose about ten de facto Arab city-states, while owning all of the mostly barren land, Judea, Samaria, Edom, etc., in between, which is being settled by Jewish settlers.

The key factor is likely to be water. Those Arab communities mostly don't have enough to meet their needs. Israel has, however, solved the problem of low-cost desalinization of the water of the Mediterranean, low enough for agriculture. which it can supply to Arab communities and its settlements, or not. Eventually many of the Arabs may need to move away. The Arab dream of out-populating the Jews and winning control of the government is unlikely to overcome the water problem.