ABSTRACT
The international New Class, it seems to the author, pursues its particular class interest by declaring it to be a universal interest; it is able to do so by deliberately exploiting the confusion between 'global' and 'international', on the one hand, and 'universal', on the other. The legitimacy sought for the tribunals is one of supremacy over national claims, first over the limited area of war crimes and then to extend over the whole field of human rights. The contemporary claims of internationalism are in many ways merely a secularization of ancient Catholic thought as it was drawn from Biblical texts and then given a specifically medieval Christian cast. For the very idea of a 'world order', as a disturbing remnant of Judeo-Christian eschatology, expresses a derivative Enlightenment eschatology that is, if anything, stronger even than its Biblical antecedents.
