“On wrongdoing”,
You can never really punish wrongdoing fairly, because “fair” has multiple contradictory definitions. The vaguest yet is when it’s used as a synonym for “justice”. And as we or at least I know, no justice system in the United States (and arguably globally) can produce it. Justice probably would have been Mongolia arresting Putin during his 2024 visit, since his ICC warrant had been issued by then; they did not. The UN and ICC though are essentially a tea party with 195 invitees, and for the U.S. especially international law is more of an international suggestion with internationally inconsequential consequences. Justice might have been the U.S. ratifying the Rome Statute but it never did, since the ICC and ICJ and whatever else have no individual enforcement mechanism. Which creates a dilemma: Is an honest system without some countries, since states like the U.S. and Russia would just leave after being vetoed, better than a system with everybody in it that has little functional power? ♦