Godwin’s Law states that, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 100 per cent. A corollary to the law is that the first person to mention the Nazis loses the argument. So it is surprising that Richard Hermer, the attorney general, should make that mistake.
He said in a lecture on Thursday: “The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when the conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany – most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts.”
