Who's legitimate?

Roger L. Simon wrote:

Mr. Sharon, Tear Down that Wall - NOT

How ironic that the judge who read the ruling declaring Israel's security barrier illegal comes from China - the country that ate Tibet whole and has a human rights record somewhere South of Attila.

"The wall ... cannot be justified by military exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order," said Judge Shi Jiuyong of China as he read out the ruling.

Public order? Well, the Chinese wrote the book on that.

According to Shi Jiuyong's 史久镛 biography at the International Court of Justice, after getting an M.A. in International Law at Columbia University in 1951, he stayed on to do research in international law until 1954. Then he returned to China, and was apparently unharmed during the "anti-rightist" campaign of the late fifties as well as the Cultural Revolution. More recently, he's been a Council member of the Institute of Hong Kong Law of the Chinese Law Society in Beijing. It's difficult to believe that he's fought for the legal rights of the people of Hong Kong.

In any case, the Chinese legal system is such a joke, it's hard to see what legitimacy Shi Jiuyong has, and for me, his presence on the World Court undermines its legitimacy. Speaking of which, several days ago on CNN here in Taiwan there was a panel discussion where the legitimacy of the Iraqi government was called into question. It looks to me as if the speaker considered it illegitimate because so few countries recognized it. So does that mean that Taiwan's government is illegitimate? Hey, let's ask the world court! (more here)