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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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As a slightly more nationalist Indian than the one you replied to, here's my perspective: I don't really care if Canada stops immigration from India. I have no plans to leave India, and any Indians who do wish to do so can fend for themselves. The Indian government doesn't need to facilitate people who want to emigrate. If that's the price India has to pay to whack a terrorist abroad, I would support more terrorists being whacked. If it leads to anti-india protests in Canada, well that's nothing new. Khalistanis in Canada, the US and the UK have organised such protests in the past, even to the point of attacking the Indian high commission. If Canada doesn't like extra-judicial killings, it could have extradited the guy designated as a terrorist by a fellow democracy and allowed him to stand trial in India.

The Indian government rules India, not Canada. Canada is a sovereign country and is under no obligation to extradite anyone to India. Why does its refusal to do so mean the Indian government can commit murder in Canada?

Legally or practically?

Legally, it doesn't. Practically, it means cost-benefit considerations change in the general terms. Canada is under no obligation to extradite anyone to India; Canada is also not under no obligation to not extradite anyone to India. How willing Canada is to extradite people in general is going to shape how other actors approach it on the subject of dissidents abroad.

Refusals of extradition leading to unilateral as the requesting country considers other methods isn't an uncommon thing, it's an established part of history. That's why extradition agreements aren't a political favor, they are a mechanism to limit score-settling abroad or permitting other country's internal political disputes from being based in one's own territory. Just as the premise of providing support to another country's dissidents from your own territory to weaken them is a tactic as old as time, so is the tactic of extraditing another country's trouble-makers back to them. Canada refusing to do so is a position- it's not the end of the matter.

Canada is a sovereign country under a Westphalian model. So is India. The Westphalian model offers no endorsement to India's alleged activity, but it also offers no remedy to Canada, because there is no legal appeal to enforce corrections for violations between Sovereign countryies, because if there was they wouldn't be Sovereign.

This is why international politics is generally described as amoral and anarchistic- because the ability to enforce one's preferences is limited to one's own willingness to retaliate.

Would you apply that logic to Afghanistan refusing to extradite Osama bin Laden?

No, because we were at war. If we had been at peace, then yes. Another difference is we have an extradition treaty with India. Presumably, there is a good reason he wasn't extradited and there was a possibility of negotiating something but it didn't happen for some reason. The solution to this general problem has been worked out between these two countries and India shouldn't be resorting to something approaching an act of war.