>In fact, it's kind of insensitive for foreigners to suggest that a judge of a sovereign nation must consider US law in his rulings.
It's just as insensitive for a judge of a foreign nation to suggest that all foreigners must consider his rulings when making decisions under their own sovereign laws.
If a business wants to operate in a foreign country, it seems natural to me to follow the rules of that country; the fact that the business did not open an office in that country looks irrelevant--otherwise, do not open any office abroad and do what you want.
Incidentally, I wonder how the situation would be handled and what the opinion would be if some big foreign company operating in the US were shut down in the same way.
> otherwise, do not open any office abroad and do what you want.
Isn't this a fair position ?
Imagine you are a lone dev creating a service that has no specific limitations. You are subject to your countries law, but should also be liable under each single law of every country where your users might happen to be ?
It seems to me that countries should have the right to do what they want within their borders (including shutting down access to some services) but go the diplomatic route if they have to interact with people out of their borders.
What is your problem here? He does not shut down WhatsApp in total or request info for US user or anything like that, only in Brazil. This does not affect you at all. If they do not obey the law in another country, they do not get access there. Their activities in any other country do not change.
One problem I have is free trade. Can the US just randomly ban one of Brazil's exports? I mean the US likely exports more to Brazil than imports from it but if this weren't the case...
Well, technically one could argue that it's not strange for a foreigner to comply with the judge's orders if they want their service to keep working in his country. They may refuse, sure, but there are consequences for that.
So, in this case, "all foreigners must consider his rulings", applies only for the those who wish to keep their service working in Brazil.
I'm not sure what I'd prefer, but borders are an artifact of lag-induced information asymmetry that has drastically lessened with modern means of communication and travel and their existence is a pre-requisite for a lot of the fucked up power dynamics on our planet so I imagine a number of potential systems without them could be an improvement.
> It's just as insensitive for a judge of a foreign nation to suggest that all foreigners must consider his rulings when making decisions under their own sovereign laws.
If you are operating in Brazil you have to follow Brazilian laws, including judges' orders. Just because I decide to do something in the US doesn't mean it's automatically legal when I do it in Brazil.
It's just as insensitive for a judge of a foreign nation to suggest that all foreigners must consider his rulings when making decisions under their own sovereign laws.