States will do whatever states CAN do. Treaties mean nothing by themselves, especially in this context.
(side note: nearly all treaties are both formal and international by default)
Of course. But there's a big difference between doing covertly and doing in daylight with an office.
Should foreign countries open US "Corporate Intellectual Property Donation" physical offices?
Treaties set a floor on behavior. For those who claim laws don't matter, remember that contracts and all global supply chains are based on laws of trade and finance. No law = no economy = war until agreement and law is re-established.
This is even official in some cases. For example, the USA does not recognize any authority of the the International Criminal Court (neither do China, Russia and a number of other big states), but that doesn't stop them from occasionally using it against smaller nations.
You can look for a long time, but you'll never find an example of a superpower/empire, or a close ally of one, submitting to any kind of international judgment against it, criminal or in a trade dispute. At most, they may accept a negative ruling to a case they brought against someone else.
This is not true. The USA is not a party to the Rome Statute and asserts that the conditions which would otherwise subject its citizens to ICC jurisdiction categorically do not exist, and has authorized unlimited measures should the ICC disagree with the last point, but does not dispute the authority of the ICC.
> You can look for a long time, but you’ll never find an example of a superpower/empire, or a close ally of one, submitting to any kind of international judgment against it, criminal or in a trade dispute.
Well, states are not subjects of criminal law, so the criminal part is trivially true. As for trade disputes, the US has complied with numerous adverse decisions in WTO proceedings.
Well, that’s the position of US law.
There are certainly cases one might point to and make the argument that the US domestic system does not always effectively deal with US war crimes and the crime of aggression.
Please let me know when we find mass graves of women and children defiled and murdered by US soldiers, which is unfortunately common behavior for the militaries of many other states, which the ICC has been involved in prosecuting.
The crime of aggression (aka crime against peace) is, like war crimes and crimes against humanity, a widely recognized crime, prosecuted in the various peri-/post-WWII tribunals, though it took a while for the ICC to settle on its operationalization.
> There are times when the US has had soldiers commit war crimes, and it’s debatable how effective the US has been at prosecuting such things historically, but it does make a realistic attempt to do so.
The standard for ICC jurisdiction isn’t general adequacy, it is specific good faith action in the particular case.
Since 2020, China's Huawei has been subject to semiconductor supply chain restrictions which have been enforced by multiple countries. This has materially impacted Huawei consumer smartphone revenues.
But in the long term, such restrictions are likely to accelerate technical self-sufficiency, https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/china_smic_7nm_chips/
Yes, countries can break agreements, but good agreements provide benefits to all parties, such that breaking an agreement results in reciprocal loss of benefits. There are always edge cases, but by definition, not everything is an edge case and there are countless routine, negotiated agreements which benefit everyone and are happily followed.
If this is allowed to stand after global public disclosure, it can be taken as implicit "consent" having been granted by citizens and their elected representatives, which means the next phase of extra-territorial activity (e.g. new laws on 1st December 2022) will push boundaries even further.
If some countries want to sell their territorial integrity and citizen safety down the proverbial river, at least they can negotiate a good price, e.g. bounty per head, prisoner exchange, or reciprocal global kidnapping by <foreign-country> of <host-country> targets. Good luck recruiting nomadic tech talent after opening such Dantean doors.
If citizens want a new legal category for extra-territorial operations, beyond extradition, this can be negotiated in a formal international treaty.