Guidelines Puffed Up as Law: Should under the Subterfuge of Must

During the coronavirus pandemic (2020-2022), Arizona’s Ducey administration allowed bus and light-rail employees to go maskless even though they were in close contact with the public. Bus drivers were even getting sick. The “rationale” of the Phoenix transit authority was that the federal regulation is “just a mandate.” Because the word mandate means “an authoritative command,” the rationale that being a mandate renders a law or government regulation as optional can only be spurious at best; this is a case of arrogant ignorance that can’t possibly be wrong about itself in the member-state that ranked 49^th out of 50 on public education. As an authoritative command, a law, even as implemented in regulations, has what Kant called necessity in that law itself cannot be bent; it stands firm in itself as law. In contrast, a guideline connotes flexibility rather than necessity. It follows that enforcement must pertain to laws (including regulations) but not to guidelines. I contend that what are commonly referred to as international laws are actually international guidelines. Such “laws” lack viable enforcement mechanisms and thus are actually guidelines for governments engaged in international relations.

Calls that governments need to respect international law even though no enforcement mechanism exists are actually expressions of a moral desire that such “laws” should be respected in the international arena. That what is actually a should is typically expressed in terms of must by government officials around the world only adds to the mistaken belief that a viable world order exists and thus that aggressors such as Russia’s Putin, Israel’s Netanyahu, and America’s Trump—all of whom have wantonly disregarded international law—pose no threat. A law without a credible means of enforcement—and not just by volunteer “enforcers”—is not a law; as in Hobbes’ state of nature, such a “law” can be said to have the force of an ideological moral desire against opponents.

In the wake of the U.S. military’s capture of Venezuela’s sitting President Maduro, E.U. foreign minister Kallas issued a statement, which reads in part: “The E.U. recalls, that under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be upheld.”[1] The word must implies at the very least that penalties apply if the must is dismissed by a state that violates the law or Charter. As had been clear for decades, even countries in the UN could easily ignore the Charter with impunity within the UN, and the veto-powers in the Security Council need only veto a proposal to see to it that it cannot be violated because it has not passed. So, what Kallas really meant is that governments around the world should uphold the principles of international law and the UN Charter. Notice that she used the word principles, which do not constitute law, so she contradicts herself in applying the word must. For someone to say, you must follow that principle, is not the same as saying, you must follow the law. Only the latter connotes or implies that violations will be punished—not even that there might be penalties. Those exist even if law enforcement does not catch a particular culprit.

Kallas’s statement can be critiqued on moral grounds, which is certainly ironic because her foreign-policy stance is laudable; I submit that militaristic heads of government should be restrained internationally, lest the world falls back into the dark ages. In using the word must, the E.U.’s foreign minister was doing exactly what Nietzsche calls attention to in his critique of modern morality, in which “Thou shalt not” is used as a club of sorts to beguile the self-confident strong into unilaterally not acting on their strength. Were he alive, Nietzsche would probably council the sitting U.S. president not to feel shamed or guilty from Kallas’s infliction of must, which can only mean should in referring to international law and anything to do with the United Nations given the utter lack of enforcement. Without that, the world is left with international guidelines rather than laws, and the UN is left standing on the sideline utterly impotent from the self-inflicted initial wounds of the veto-mechanism in the Security Council and the lack of any UN armed forces or police adequately empowered as force to enforce UN resolutions. The same goes for the International Criminal Court, the ICC, whose arrest warrants for Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu were being either ignored around the world or even actively fought against (by the Trump administration). An arrest warrant that depends on voluntary enforcement by third parties (i.e., governments around the world) is not a warrant in any sense of that word. Again, a misleading use of words.

A problem with using words that are bear on a global order misleadingly is that the appearance of there actually being an order internationally, as distinct from “might makes right” as the de facto default, is illusionary. In actuality, when Putin invaded Ukraine, Netanyahu inflicted an inhumane holocaustic genocide on the people of Gaza, and Trump captured the sitting president Venezuela, the status of international law was epitomized by the word should rather than must. The moral desire for international constraints on raw militaristic aggression is of course laudable, but that desire itself does not constitute recognition of there being international law. To portray the former as the latter is dishonest. 

It is also counter-productive from the standpoint of what would be needed for the family of nations, or more practically a coalition of “the willing” among the political unions and sovereign states of the world, to design, approve, and activate institutions, including possibility a global federation along the times described by Kant, that are capable of instituting and enforcing law internationally. Officials of such institutions as have enough governmental sovereignty to enforce international law even with boots on the ground if necessary could indeed say must without merely expressing a moral desire. Out of such self-confident strength at the global level, albeit with institutional checks on tyranny at that level from a qualified majority of countries, which would all be semi-sovereign, the precedents being incurred in favor of “might makes right” by Putin, Netanyahu, and Trump could potentially be reversed and once again set as outliers internationally. Such rogue nations could be relegated and effectively expelled from the family of nations both economically and politically. 

That a holocaustic—yes, holocaustic—severity of suffering was unleashed by a genocidal government in the Middle East for years in the so-called modern era (after the Enlightenment!) is itself testimony enough that the post-World War II global order’s international organizations, including the International Criminal Court and the UN, including its top court, was by 2023 utterly impotent. Out of this power vacuum, militaristic aggressors on the world stage could easily sense that low-hanging fruit could be easily plucked with utter impunity. It is precisely at such a point that the ground is fertile for a new world order to be promulgated and enacted so as to constrain angry men who are bathed in power. Human nature itself is the root cause behind the cycle of world orders through history punctuated by intervals of unimpeded military aggression, such as by the three blind men, driving drunk with power, in the mid-2020s.

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1. Maria Tadeo, “EU Calls for Respect of International Law as Trump Remains Vague on Venezuelan Transition Plan,” Euronews.com, 4 January 2026.

On the Role of Agribusiness in Global Warming

Agriculture is a major source of carbon and methane emissions, which in turn are responsible for the general trend of the warming of the planet’s atmosphere and oceans. In fact, agriculture emits more than all of the cars on the roads. 10 percent of the emissions carbon dioxide and methane in the U.S. come from the agricultural sector. Livestock is the biggest source of methane. Cows, for example, emit methane. Methane from a number or sources, including the thawing permafrost, accounted for 30 percent of global warming in 2023. As global population has grown exponentially since the early 1900s, herds of livestock at farms have expanded, at least in the U.S., due to the increasing demand.[1] We are biological animals, and we too must eat. More people means that more food is needed, and the agricultural lobby in the U.S. is not about to let the governments require every resident to become a vegetarian. Indeed, the economic and political power of the large agribusinesses in the U.S. have effectively staved off federal and state regulations regarding emissions. It comes down to population, capitalism, and plutocracy warping democracy.

In the early 80s, the farm lobby in the U.S. “began to get concerned about environmental regulations” and made sure the FDA would not regulate American farms.[2] The EPA has delegated permits to the States, but they have been “uneven in issuing permits. In 2009, a law barring the EPA from applying clear air regulations to livestock” took effect.[3] The agriculture lobby has thus been “extremely effective.”[4] This has been so even in spite of the Paris Agreement reached in 2016, and the steadily increasing average global temperatures. A U.S. Government-sponsored report admits that increased demand/consumption of meat impacts climate change, which in itself is interesting given all the political donations and lobbying by the agribusiness companies in the U.S., but the report concludes that people in developing countries should eat less meat.[5] Apparently Americans are uniquely privileged to die of heart-disease. Perhaps the hospital lobby wants to encourage more business thanks to third-party payors.

The figures on the political contributions and lobbying by agribusinesses (and oil companies) are mind-blowing. For instance, American agribusiness spent a record $165 million on federal lobbying in 2022.[6] A total of $128 million went to political contributions to campaigns in the 2021-2022 cycle.[7] The sheer amounts spent lend credibility to the claim that wealth rather than votes rule: plutocracy over the veneer of democracy in America. The capture of regulatory agencies by the companies or industries being regulated has existed in the academic literature since at least the 1980s. So too has the strategic use of regulation. For example, the capture of methane at farms through technology qualifies for government subsidies, but only the bigger agribusinesses can afford this technology. Additionally, JP Morgan and other large banks have been lending primarily to large agribusinesses because they are less risky than smaller farms. It is no surprise, when all is said and done, that medium and small farms have been going out of business for decades. I submit that this cannot be explained by economies of scale alone.

To be sure, a lot of agribusinesses have pledged to be more transparent on the emissions from operations, but very few of the businesses report on the bulk of their emissions.[8] Transparency only goes so far until entrenched concentrations of economic wealth (e.g., agribusinesses) find that holding the curtains open too much can hurt business. Moreover, both the political donors and their “elected representatives” both have an interest in maintaining the veneer that the public interest is being served. Adam Smith’s invisible hand only works in a competitive market, whereas neither agribusiness nor the market for political donations in Congress is a competitive market. In Wealth of Nations, Smith does not apply the competitive-market price mechanism to government. In fact, political contributions from businesses can be thought of as a special case of price-fixing.

The encroachments of plutocracy on representative democracy are largely hidden from view, and the corruption does seem to be ineluctable. Given large enough concentrations of private wealth, the buying of political power seems inevitable. Smith wrote as much concerning the use of government by managements outweighing the ability of labor unions to do just that. He predicted the strikes and the one-sided involvement of police and even military troops. The cost of plutocracy at the expense of the public good is much more since public good and the viability of our species came to depend on our baleful impact on the earth’s climate and ecosystems.  Even so, the negative impact of a political economy of business is dwarfed by the negative impact from the sheer growth of the human population on this planet since the 1800s. As intractable as the partisan, self-serving, and narrow involvement of business in government is, it would be difficult for a population that has gone from 2 billion to 7 billion in the twentieth century to begin to trim the sails by discouraging population growth. For one thing, reducing the number of potential consumers would be bad for business.

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1. Georgina Gustin, “Climate Change and Agriculture,” Yale University, February 22, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Madison McVan, “GRAPHIC: Agribusiness Spent a Record-breaking $165 million on Federal Lobbying Last Year,” Investigate Midwest, February 16, 2023.
7. “Agribusiness Top Contributors,” Open Secrets.
8. Georgina Gustin, “Climate Change and Agriculture,” Yale University, February 22, 2024.