CHEMICAL WEAPONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

It has been asserted that military intervention by the United States in response to the Assad regime's alleged use of chemical weapons, absent United Nations approval, would constitute a violation of international law.  This is logically true--except:  From whence does "international law" emanate?  Where is it practiced?  How is it enforced?

The declarations recited during the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conferences, that chemical devices should never be resorted to (even before they were fully developed to be subsequently used in World War I) were obviously ignored  when the "War to end all Wars" finally broke out.  The prohibitions of same that issued out of the 1925 Geneva Convention were similarly frequently ignored.  (In fact, the United States didn't ratify it until 1975--a half century later.)

The League of Nations that followed World War I was an excellent idea--by an excellent American President (Woodrow Wilson)--who died heartbroken in the knowledge that his own country refused to join (contributing to its weakness and eventual failure, as World War II began).

The United Nations is similarly riven with ineffectiveness and politically driven contradictions.  Instead of a UNION of nations, it is but a COLLECTION of nations, where little is accomplished at the table--and even LESS in the field.  (In my book, World Unity, I detail the faults of both of these well-meaning but basically impotent organizations.)

Joining together with others to "straighten out the mess," seems a more sensible alternative.  Should the United States have fallen victim to its zeal to be "policeman of the world," and now "parent of the world," it would likely have accomplished little, and inherited more international disdain.