The 2003.10.17 issue of the journal Science has an article “The Glitter of Distant Seas,” reporting the results of the recent Arecibo/Green Bank radio telescopes' radaring of Saturn's giant moon Titan.  As the article reports: ¹

Planetary alignments now expose Saturn's giant, haze-shrouded moon Titan to the recently upgraded 300-m Arecibo radar dish.  Campbell et al. have used this dish to blast Titan with hundreds of kilowatts of microwave power.  As they report on page 431 of this issue, 2 hours later they received a faint echo at the rebuilt 100-m Green Bank radio telescope.  Because the results have a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than previous efforts with smaller dishes, they carry much more information.  The results confirm that Titan is like nowhere else in the solar system.  […]

[T]he most striking feature in the new radar data: the transient sharp spikes in the reflected spectrum, which suggest specular reflections (see the figure) from smooth, dark areas 50 to 150 km across.

“Specular reflections” are like the bright image/reflection of the sun off the ocean in views of the earth from space.

These features may be impact craters — of which, extrapolating from other saturnian moons, one might expect around 80 with a diameter of 150 km and thousands of smaller ones — that have filled to form [hydrocarbon] lakes and seas.  The radar data suggest that as much as 75% of Titan's surface could be covered in this way.

The Cassini spacecraft arrives in the Saturnian system in “just” 12 months (2004.10). When I think how fiercely the Luddites fought — and how close they may have come to canceling — that mission, well I'm afraid my hands reflexively close as if to strangle (or wring) some necks.
 
 

Reference

¹ Ralph Lorenz, “The Glitter of Distant Seas,” Science, Vol. 302, Issue 5644 (2003.10.17), pp. 403-404 (requires subscription or pay-per-view).  Published online 2003.10.02 (10.1126/science.1090464).
 

UPDATE:  2003.11.02 17:00 UT.  After Impearls' reader Mike Daley forwarded the above posting on to him, Joe Katzman at Winds of Change posted a link and commented, “If [Cassini] should find distant seas in the far reaches of our solar system — well, that would be something wouldn't it?”  Indeed it would.

Since quoting Winston Churchill and Mark Steyn in the same breath, I was amused (and a bit saddened) by Steyn's recent piece “Henry Goes to Baghdad,” about two productions (London and New York) of Shakespeare's Henry V, one of which uses the play to proclaim an antiwar theme, while the other basically fails to get (or is consciously anti-) Shakespeare altogether. ¹

Still, there have been so many films and productions over the years based on Shakespeare's work that most people, I would think, who are at least slightly susceptible to Shakespeare or history, have seen and become somewhat familiar with his story of the Battle of Agincourt, England's famous and lopsided victory during its Hundred Years War with France.  Many fewer people, however — since Shakespeare never documented it for us — know today of the much earlier (69 years before, in 1346) Battle of Crécy, which pretty much opened the confrontation between infantry shooting missile weapons versus sword and lance wielding knights-cavalry — between a national army and a militarized elite — which characterized much of the Hundred Years War.  Fortunately for us all, Churchill has told the tale in his History of the English-Speaking Peoples.
 

The Long-bow

At the same time [as the Welsh wars of Edward I] a counter-revolution in the balance of warfare was afoot.  The mailed cavalry which from the fifth century eclipsed the ordered ranks of the legion were wearing out their long day.  A new type of infantry raised from the common people began to prove its dominating quality.  This infantry operated, not by club or sword or spear, or even by hand-flung missiles, but by an archery which, after a long development, concealed from Europe, was very soon to make an astonishing entrance upon the military scene and gain a dramatic ascendancy upon the battlefields of the Continent.  Here was a prize taken by the conquerors from their victims.  In South Wales the practice of drawing the long-bow had already attained an astonishing efficiency, of which one of the Marcher lords has left a record.  One of his knights had been hit by an arrow which pierced not only the skirts of his mailed shirt, but his mailed breeches, his thigh, and the wood of his saddle, and finally stuck deep into his horse's flank.  This was a new fact in the history of war, which is also a part of the history of civilisation, deserving to be mentioned with the triumph of bronze over flint, or iron over bronze.  For the first time infantry possessed a weapon which could penetrate the armour of the clanking age, and which in range and rate of fire was superior to any method ever used before, or ever used again until the coming of the modern rifle.  The War Office has among its records a treatise written during the peace after Waterloo by a general officer of long experience in the Napoleonic wars recommending that muskets should be discarded in favor of the long-bow on account of its superior accuracy, rapid discharge, and effective range. ²  […]

The English people stood at this time possessed of a commanding weapon, the qualities of which were utterly unsuspected abroad.  The long-bow, handled by the well-trained archer class, brought into the field a yeoman type of soldier with whom there was nothing on the Continent to compare.  An English army now rested itself equally upon the armoured knighthood and the archers.

The power of the long-bow and the skill of the bowmen had developed to the point where even the finest mail was no certain protection.  At two hundred and fifty yards the arrow hail produced effects never reached again by infantry missiles at such a range until the American civil war.  The skilled archer was a professional soldier, earning and deserving high pay.  He went to war on a pony, but always with a considerable transport for his comfort and his arrows.  He carried with him a heavy iron-pointed stake, which, planted in the ground, afforded a deadly obstacle to charging horses.  Behind this shelter a company of archers in open order could deliver a discharge of arrows so rapid, continuous, and penetrating as to annihilate the cavalry attack.  Moreover, in all skirmishing and patrolling the trained archer brought his man down at ranges which had never before been considered dangerous in the whole history of war.  Of all this the Continent, and particularly France, our nearest neighbour, was ignorant.  In France the armoured knight and his men-at-arms had long exploited their ascendancy in war.  The foot-soldiers who accompanied their armies were regarded as the lowest type of auxiliary.  A military caste had imposed itself upon society in virtue of physical and technical assertions which the coming of the long-bow must disprove.  The protracted wars of the two Edwards in the mountains of Wales and Scotland had taught the English many hard lessons, and although European warriors had from time to time shared in them they had neither discerned nor imparted the slumbering secret of the new army.  It was with a sense of unmeasured superiority that the English looked out upon Europe towards the middle of the fourteenth century. ³ 
 

The Battle of Crécy

By the spring of 1346 Parliament had at length brought itself to the point of facing the taxation necessary to finance a new invasion.  The army was reconstituted, more efficiently than before, its old elements were refreshed with carefully chosen levies.  In one wave 2,400 cavalry, twelve thousand archers, and other infantry sailed, and landed unopposed at St. Vaast in Normandy on July 12, 1346.  Their object this time was no less than the capture of Paris by a sudden dash.  The secret was well kept; even the English army itself believed it was going to Gascony.  The French could not for some time collect forces sufficient to arrest the inroad.  Caen fell, and Edward [III] advanced, burning and laying waste the country, to the very walls of Paris.  But by this time the whole power of the French monarchy had gathered against him.  A huge force which comprised all the chivalry of France and was probably three times as big as Edward's army assembled in the neighbourhood of St. Denis.  Against such opposition, added to the walls of a fortified city, Edward's resources could not hope to prevail.  King Philip grimly invited him to choose upon which bank of the Seine he would fight a pitched battle.

The thrust had failed and retreat imposed itself upon the army.  The challenger was forced to quit the lists at a pace which covered sixty miles in four days.  The French army moved on a parallel line to the southward and denied the Seine valley to the retreating English.  They must now make for the Somme, and hope to cross between Amiens and the sea.  [...]

After a narrow escape crossing the mouth of the Somme, Edward's army was brought to bay by King Philip's host next to the forest of Crécy.

Edward and his army were intensely convinced of the narrowness of their deliverance.  That night they rejoiced; the countryside was full of food; the King gathered his chiefs to supper and afterwards to prayer.  But it was certain they could not gain the coast without a battle.  No other resolve was open than to fight at enormous odds.  The King and the Prince of Wales, afterwards famous as the Black Prince, received all the offices of religion, and Edward prayed that the impending battle should at least leave him unstripped of honour.  With the daylight he marshalled about eleven thousand men in three divisions.  Mounted upon a small palfrey, with a white wand in his hand, with his splendid surcoat of crimson and gold above his armour, he rode along the ranks, “encouraging and entreating the army that they would guard his honour and defend his right.”  “He spoke this so sweetly and with such a cheerful countenance that all who had been dispirited were directly comforted by seeing and hearing him….  They ate and drank at their ease … and seated themselves on the ground, placing their helmets and bows before them, that they might be the fresher when their enemies should arrive.”  Their position on the open rolling downs enjoyed few advantages, but the forest of Crécy on their flanks afforded protection and the means of a final stand.

King Philip at sunrise on this same Saturday, August 26, 1346, heard Mass in the monastery of Abbeville, and his whole army, gigantic for those times, rolled forward in their long pursuit.  Four knights were sent forth to reconnoitre.  About midday the King, having arrived with large masses on the farther bank of the Somme, received their reports.  The English were in battle array and meant to fight.  He gave the sage counsel to halt for the day, bring up the rear, form the battle-line, and attack on the morrow.  These orders were carried by famous chiefs to all parts of the army.  But the thought of leaving, even for a day, this hated foe, who had for so many marches fled before overwhelming forces, and was now compelled to come to grips, was unendurable to the French army.  What surety had they that the morrow might not see their enemies decamped and the field bare?  It became impossible to control the forward movement.  All the roads and tracks from Abbeville to Crécy were black and glittering with the marching columns.  King Philip's orders were obeyed by some, rejected by most.  While many great bodies halted obediently, still larger masses poured forward, forcing their way through the stationary or withdrawing troops, and about five in the afternoon came face to face with the English army lying in full view on the broad slopes of Crécy.  Here they stopped.

King Philip, arriving on the scene, was carried away by the ardour of the throng around him.  The sun was already low; nevertheless all were determined to engage.  There was a corps of six thousand Genoese cross-bowmen in the van of the army.  These were ordered to make their way through the masses of horsemen, and with their missiles break up the hostile array in preparation for the cavalry attacks.  The Genoese had marched eighteen miles in full battle order with their heavy weapons and store of bolts.  Fatigued, they made it plain that they were in no condition to do much that day.  But the Count d'Alençon, who had covered the distance on horseback, did not accept this remonstrance kindly.  “This is what one gets,” he exclaimed, “by employing such scoundrels, who fall off when there is anything for them to do.”  Forward the Genoese!  At this moment, while the cross-bowmen were threading their way to the front under many scornful glances, dark clouds swept across the sun and a short, drenching storm beat upon the hosts.  A large flight of crows flew cawing through the air above the French in gloomy presage.  The storm, after wetting the bow-strings of the Genoese, passed as quickly as it had come, and the setting sun shone brightly in their eyes and on the backs of the English.  This, like the crows, was adverse, but it was more material.  The Genoese, drawing out their array, gave a loud shout, advanced a few steps, shouted again, and a third time advanced, “hooted,” and discharged their bolts.  Unbroken silence had wrapped the English lines, but at this the archers, six or seven thousand strong, ranged on both flanks in “portcullis” formation, who had hitherto stood motionless, advanced one step, drew their bows to the ear, and came into action.  They “shot their arrows with such force and quickness,” says Froissart, “that it seemed as if it snowed.”

The effect upon the Genoese was annihilating; at a range which their own weapons could not attain they were in a few minutes killed by thousands.  The ground was covered with feathered corpses.  Reeling before this blast of missile destruction, the like of which had not been known in war, the survivors recoiled in rout upon the eager ranks of the French chivalry and men-at-arms, which stood just out of arrow-shot.  “Kill me those scoundrels,” cried King Philip in fury, “for they stop up our road without any reason.”  Whereupon the front line of the French cavalry rode among the retreating Genoese, cutting them down with their swords.  In doing so they came within the deadly distance.  The arrow snowstorm beat upon them, piercing their mail and smiting horse and man.  Valiant squadrons from behind rode forward into the welter, and upon all fell the arrow hail, making the horses caper, and strewing the field with richly dressed warriors.  A hideous disorder reigned.  And now Welsh and Cornish light infantry, slipping through the chequered ranks of the archers, came forward with their long knives and, “falling upon earls, barons, knights, and squires, slew many, at which the King of England was afterwards exasperated.”  Many a fine ransom was cast away in those improvident moments.

In this slaughter fell King Philip's ally, the blind King of Bohemia, who bade his knights fasten their bridles to his in order that he might strike a blow with his own hand.  Thus entwined, he charged forward in the press.  Man and horse they fell, and the next day their bodies were found still linked.  His son, Prince Charles of Luxembourg, who as Emperor-elect of the Holy Roman Empire signed his name as King of the Romans, was more prudent, and, seeing how matters lay, departed with his following by an unnoticed route.  The main attack of the French now developed.  The Count d'Alençon and the Count of Flanders led heavy cavalry charges upon the English line.  Evading the archers as far as possible, they sought the men-at-arms, and French, German, and Savoyard squadrons actually reached the Prince of Wales's division.  The enemy's numbers were so great that those who fought about the Prince sent to the windmill, whence King Edward directed the battle, for reinforcements.  But the King would not part with his reserves, saying, “Let the boy win his spurs” — which in fact he did.

Another incident was much regarded.  One of Sir John of Hainault's knights, mounted upon a black horse, the gift that day of King Philip, escaping the arrows, actually rode right through the English lines.  Such was their discipline that not a man stirred to harm him, and, riding around the rear, he returned eventually to the French army.  Continuous cavalry charges were launched upon the English front, until utter darkness fell upon the field.  And all through the night fresh troops of brave men, resolved not to quit the field without striking their blow, struggled forward, groping their way.  All these were slain, for “No quarter” was the mood of the English, though by no means the wish of their King.

When night had fallen Philip found himself with no more than sixty knights at hand.  He was slightly wounded by one arrow, and his horse had been shot under him by another.  Sir John Hainault, mounting him again, seized his bridle and forced him from the field upon the well-known principle which, according to Froissart, he exactly expounded, of living to fight another day.  The King had but five barons with him on reaching Amiens the next morning.

“When on the Saturday night the English heard no more hooting or shouting, nor any more crying out to particular lords, or their banners, they looked upon the field as their own and their enemies as beaten.  They made great fires, and lighted torches because of the obscurity of the night.  King Edward who all that day had not put on his helmet, then came down from his post, and, with his whole battalion, advanced to the Prince of Wales, whom he embraced in his arms and kissed, and said, ‘Sweet son, God give you good perseverance.  You are my son, for most loyally have you acquitted yourself this day.  You are worthy to be a sovereign.’  The Prince bowed down very low, and humbled himself, giving all honour to the King his father.”

On the Sunday morning fog enshrouded the battlefield, and the King sent a strong force of five hundred lancers and two thousand archers to learn what lay upon his front.  These met the columns of the French rear, still marching up from Rouen to Beauvais in ignorance of the defeat, and fell upon them.  After this engagement the bodies of 1,542 knights and esquires were counted upon the field.  Later this force met with the troops of the Archbishop of Rouen and the Grand Prior of France, who were similarly unaware of the event, and were routed with much slaughter.  They also found very large numbers of stragglers and wandering knights, and “put to the sword all they met.”  “It has been assured to me for fact,” says Froissart, “that of foot-soldiers, sent from the cities, towns, and municipalities, there were slain, this Sunday morning, four times as many as in the battle of the Saturday.”  This astounding victory of Crécy ranks with Blenhiem, Waterloo, and the final advance in the last summer of the Great War as one of the four supreme achievements.  [Footnote: Written in 1939.]
 

Edward III marched through Montreuil and Blangy to Boulogne, passed through the forest of Hardelot, and opened the siege of Calais.  Calais presented itself to English eyes as the hive of that swarm of privateers who were the endless curse of the Channel.  Here on the nearest point of the Continent England had long felt a festering sore.  Calais was what Dunkirk was to become three centuries later.  The siege lasted for nearly a year.  Every new art of war was practised by land; the bombards flung cannon-balls against the ramparts with terrifying noise.  By sea elaborate barriers of piles stopped the French light craft, which sought to evade the sea blockade by creeping along the coast.  All reliefs by sea and land failed.  But the effort of maintaining the siege strained the resources of the King to an extent we can hardly conceive.  When the winter came his soldiers demanded to go home, and the fleet was on the verge of mutiny.  In England everyone complained, and Parliament was morose in demeanour and reluctant in supply.  The King and his army lived in their hutments, and he never recrossed the Channel to his kingdom.  Machiavelli has profoundly observed that every fortress should be victualled for a year, and this precaution has covered almost every case in history.

Moreover, the siege had hardly begun when King David of Scotland, in fulfilment of the alliance with France, led his army across the Border.  But the danger was foreseen, and at Neville's Cross, just west of the city of Durham, the English won a hard-fought battle.  The Scottish King himself was captured, and imprisoned in the Tower.  He remained there, as we have seen, for ten years until released under the Treaty of Berwick for an enormous ransom.  This decisive victory removed the Scottish danger for a generation, but more than once, before and after Flodden, the French alliance was to bring disaster to this small and audacious nation.

Calais held out for eleven months, and yet this did not suffice.  Famine at length left no choice to the besieged.  They sued for terms.  The King was so embittered that when at his demand six of the noblest citizens presented themselves in their shirts, barefoot, emaciated, he was for cutting off their heads.  The warnings of his advisers that his fame would suffer in history by so cruel a deed left him obdurate.  But Queen Philippa, great with child, who had followed him to the war, fell down before him in an edifying, and perhaps prearranged, tableau of Mercy pleading with Justice.  So the burghers of Calais who had devoted themselves to save their people were spared, and even kindly treated.  Calais, then, was the fruit, and the sole territorial fruit so far, of the exertions, prodigious in quality, of the whole power of England in the war with France.  But Crécy had a longer tale to tell. ⁴ 
 
 

Afterward

No, I didn't have Winston Churchill's copyright permission to post the foregoing!  Somehow I doubt he would object to my popularizing this excerpt of his words and work here.  However, for any present publishers' benefit — as well as my own conviction — I will say this: go check out (there are such things as libraries, you know) or buy the friggin' books!  You won't be sorry.
 

References

¹ Mark Steyn, “Henry Goes to Baghdad,” The New Criterion, 2003.09.

² Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume 1: “The Birth of Britain,” Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1956, p. 300.

³ Ibid., pp. 332-333.

⁴ Ibid., pp. 341-351.

I quite love Winston Churchill's — yes, that Winston Churchill (as Zero Mostel put it in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: “the the himself!”) — History of the English-Speaking Peoples; nor am I alone in this judgment, despite its four-volume girth. ¹  Renowned American historian Henry Steele Commager so liked the work that he arranged a one-volume condensation of it, to bring Churchill's history closer to the American people. ²  (While H. S. Commager's edition is very worthwhile in its own right, I do recommend Churchill's unabridged version, if you have the time.  My personal feeling is that Churchill wrote so well that the four volumes go by far too quickly.)

As an insightful and history-making British parliamentarian, Churchill brought a unique viewpoint to his subsequent role as historian, laying out the common story leading to the present diaspora of English-speaking peoples round the world, as well as considering the origins and development of the English-speaking peoples' governing principles, which in my view hold a key to worldwide freedom and liberty in the modern age.  His history also has an excellent portrayal of the American Civil War, by the way.

I was thinking of Churchill's History while pondering Eugene Volokh's recent post on European prosecutions of U.S. soldiers. ³  Many people writing on this subject portray it as a national sovereignty issue.  While I believe this approach has merit, I'd like to take a slightly different point of view: whether the institutions of many, even supposedly ”advanced,” national governments and international agencies are “mature” enough — in the human rights and robust republican institutions sense — to warrant deferring to or surrendering national sovereignty in lieu of.  Part of the problem I believe may be that many such national and international organizations are established using naive Roman law institutional strictures.

The best exposition of this of which I'm aware is to be found way back in the Medieval section of Winston Churchill's history.  The initial paragraph quoted below provides context some legal aficionados may find interesting, otherwise skip it.

It is a maxim of English law that legal memory begins with the accession of Richard I in 1189.  The date was set for a technical reason by a statute of Edward I.  It could scarcely have been more appropriately chosen however, for with the close of the reign of Henry II we are on the threshold of a new epoch in the history of English law.  With the establishment of a system of royal courts, giving the same justice all over the country, the old diversity of local law was rapidly broken down, and a law common to the whole land and to all men soon took its place.  A modern lawyer, transported to the England of Henry's predecessor, would find himself in strange surroundings; with the system that Henry bequeathed to his son he would feel almost at home.  That is the measure of the great King's achievement.  He had laid the foundations of the English Common Law, upon which succeeding generations would build.  Changes in the design would arise, but its main outlines were not to be altered.

It was in these fateful and formative years that the English-speaking peoples began to devise methods of determining legal disputes which survive in substance to this day.  A man can only be accused of a civil or criminal offence which is clearly defined and known to the law.  The judge is an umpire.  He adjudicates on such evidence as the parties choose to produce.  Witnesses must testify in public and on oath.  They are examined and cross-examined, not by the judge, but by the litigants themselves or their legally qualified and privately hired representatives.  The truth of their testimony is weighed not by the judge b[ut] by twelve good men and true, and it is only when this jury has determined the facts that the judge is empowered to impose sentence, punishment, or penalty according to law.

All might seem very obvious, even a platitude, until one contemplates the alternative system which still dominates a large portion of the world.  Under Roman law, and systems derived from it, a trial in those turbulent centuries, and in some countries even to-day, is often an inquisition.  The judge makes his own investigation into the civil wrong or the public crime, and such investigation is largely uncontrolled.  The suspect can be interrogated in private.  He must answer all questions put to him.  His right to be represented by a legal adviser is restricted.  The witnesses against him can testify in secret and in his absence.  And only when these processes have been accomplished is the accusation or charge against him formulated and published.  Thus often arises secret intimidation, enforced confessions, torture, and blackmailed pleas of guilty.

These sinister dangers were extinguished from the Common Law of England more than six centuries ago.  By the time Henry II's great-grandson, Edward I had died English criminal and civil procedure had settled into a mould and tradition which in the mass govern the English-speaking peoples to-day.  In all claims and disputes, whether they concerned the grazing lands of the Middle West, the oilfields of California, the sheep-runs and gold-mines of Australia, or the territorial rights of the Maoris, these rules have obtained, at any rate in theory, according to the procedure and mode of trial evolved by the English Common Law.

Considering these “sinister dangers,” it's clear from an article last year in the New York Times, “Russia Glances to the West for Its New Legal Code,” that Russia, for one, as an inheritor of the old Roman law system, has lagged far behind in its judicial development.  As the full article states, with regard to preparations for introduction of a new legal code in Russia: ⁴ 

At its most basic, the new code is intended to introduce an adversarial process, with prosecutors required to argue the facts of a case while the defense will have new powers to challenge evidence, witnesses and procedures.  Judges, who until now have worked closely with prosecutors, are supposed to act as detached arbiters.

The question is how much legal systems of supposedly “advanced” western countries such as France, Germany, or say Belgium still retain vestiges of old Roman law practices within their own legal codes, and which thus may also be retained by international organizations, such as the International Criminal Court.  Certainly the antics of judges in Roman-law countries such as Spain does not inspire confidence that such systemic structural injustices are merely vestigial across western European countries in general.

Looking at the overall structure of the International Criminal Court, it does appear that an effort is being made there to establish the prosecutorial function as independent of the “judgmental,” if that's the proper way of putting it.  Even though the ICC does seem to be avoiding the Roman law trap whereby judges effectively act as prosecutor and jury in cases which appear before them, other issues inherent in the court appear to pose strong drawbacks to the real interests of justice in a democratic world society.  As the above page on ICC web site makes clear, principal judge selection criteria for the court are described as “[t]he representation of the principal legal systems of the world,” and “equitable geographical representation.”  Despite the oh-so multicultural and politically correct ring to them, these principles would appear potentially worrisome.  The fact is that most legal systems which have developed round the world have no interest or tradition in human rights or the individual, not to speak of republican institutions, at all.

The ICC's write-up has much fine talk about the “principle of complementarity” (see here and here, wherein it declares, for example, that “the Court itself is but a last resort for bringing justice to the victims,”), and then goes on to say: ⁵

Emphasising the primary responsibility of States to investigate and prosecute international crimes, the Statute provides that a case is inadmissible before the Court where the case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State which has jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution. The Chief Prosecutor is obliged to consider this requirement of the Statute when deciding whether or not to start an investigation.

Despite this, the complementarity principle seems ultimately to be more directed at forcing coordination and compliance by the “States Parties” to the agreement (which I would think in the case of the U.S. would require Constitutional changes) than, despite all its talk, actually restricting the ICC Prosecutor from authorizing legal action against persons in states having robust legal systems of their own.  In other words, this principle appears more closely related to the EU's approach to forcing “coordination” between member States and the EU regulatory system than to, say, any federal relationship between states of the U.S. and the American government.

As Mark Steyn memorably put it in his article “Convergence Criteria” published back in 1996 (I'll quote quite a bit of it, as I lack a functioning link to the piece to provide): ⁶

Eurosceptics believe they have been proved right about federalism.  But they have not.  They do not even understand the terms they use.  Their muddled thinking, as they struggle to dramatise in plausible terms what is at stake, is summed up by Norman Lamont's claim that, in a federal Europe, Britain would be “reduced to the status of Delaware in the United States.”

To which a Delawarean would reply: you should be so lucky, pal.  In the things that count Delaware is more independent of Washington than Britain is of Brussels.  When Pete Du Pont was Governor of the state, he introduced a temporary petrol tax to pay off the deficit, and then abolished it.  The British Chancellor would like to reduce the duty on ultra-low sulphur diesel, but needs permission from Brussels.  If on the other hand Du Pont had decided to increase the deficit, there's no one in Washington with the powers to fine the state for breaching any “stability pact” or failing to meet “convergence criteria.”  […]

Presumably, Lamont picked on Delaware because it's small and insignificant and known to the British only through Perry Como's novelty song, What did Delaware?  But the truth is Dela wouldn't wear half the infringements on her sovereignty that the UK's been willing to swallow.  It's typical of the Eurosceptics that, in trying to conjure the horrors of federalism, they should evoke the world's only indisputably successful federation — a comparison which is absurdly flattering to the EU.  For one thing, America is a classical federation — that's to say, it's a federation constructed in order that local majorities should prevail at least in their localities.  […]  American federalism is built from the ground up, with the central government's powers explicitly limited.  The EU is closer to the bogus federations of communism: real nationalisms are unconvincingly replaced by an ersatz identity imposed from the top by a centralised elite and intended to obscure the fact that the constituent parts have nothing in common.  […]

The United States is plural, as befits a federation.  “Union,” though, is a word that has always meant a centralised, unitary state.  And, on the evidence, that's what they're building.  So the Eurosceptics are wrong: the European Union is not becoming a federation; it is already a centralised bureaucracy.  Delaware, Mr Lamont?  You should be so lucky.

So long as other nations' and international institutions lack such seemingly basic (but actually, historically, almost uniquely ”Anglo”) human rights together with republican safeguards, nations possessing superior standards along these lines should guard their sovereign rights jealously.
 
 

Reference

¹ Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume 1: “The Birth of Britain,” Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1956; pp. 221-223.

² Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, arranged for one volume by Henry Steele Commager, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, ISBN 0-56619-545-4 (hardcover), ISBN 0-56619-813-5 (paperback), 1995.

³ Eugene Volokh, “European prosecutions of U.S. soldiers,” The Volokh Conspiracy, 2003.09.15 18:34 local time.

⁴ Steven Lee Myers, “Russia Glances to the West for Its New Legal Code,” The New York Times, 2002.07.01.

⁵ “The Office of the Prosecutor at a glance,” also “How does the Court work” and the “Organs of the Court,” International Criminal Court.  See also the Rome Statute of 2002.07.01.

⁶ Mark Steyn, “Convergence Criteria,” The Sunday Telegraph, 1996.12.08.