Noncompliance and the International Rule of Law

We treat noncompliance with disdain, and for good reason. After all, what does it mean to be a law if violation is permitted? And what does it mean to be a legal system if disobedience is tolerated? This contempt for noncompliance is such that we scorn the legal system that fails to uphold its own rules.

And just as we are conditioned to treat ineffective legal systems with disdain, so too do we condemn individual acts of noncompliance.