In a message dated 7/12/04 6:14:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> If this is the case, no crime was committed in this country bu Arias - it > was > committed in Peru. The good doctor's brave but uninformed efforts to tie Arias's case to US imperialism notwithstanding, virtually all, if not in fact all, countries assert extraterritorial legal jurisdiction over some or other acts performed outside their borders which have an impact within their territory, whether those acts are performed by their citizens or not. The basic right of states to do so has been long recognized under international law. As is usually the case with international law, the limits of that right are a bit hazy and states have certainly been known to, shall we say, test those limits (the US is hardly alone in that). But one would be hard pressed to find an international jurist of any political stripe who would dispute the validity of straightforward applications of a law like the Lacey Act. I don't disagree that the US generally, and these days very specifically, has imperialist tendencies and unlike many similarly minded countries has, unfortunately, the means to exercise them, but this case has nothing to do with that. Period. Full stop. Had Arias intentionally mislabeled the plants but sold them domestically in Peru, I doubt very much any US prosecutor would have filed charges against him if someone unconnected to him later bought the plants, obtained what would be in fact, if not by intention, "false" export documents and then shipped them to the US. If they did try to prosecute Arias in that case, he would have a great defense and I think would likely prevail. But that is not what was alleged to have happened here. (Maybe he didn't do what he allegedly did and pled guilty for other reasons, but that's a different issue. And since none of us knows from our own knowledge just what he did do, so there's not much point in pursuing that separate, abeit parallel, line of discussion.) Michael Gerzog
_______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids
