PT57, S3, Q12 Editorial: To qualify as an effective law, as

by **giladedelman** Wed Jul 07, 2010 5:09 pm

12. (E)
Question Type: Assumption
To qualify as an effective law, a command must be backed up by an effective enforcement mechanism, which is why societies have police: the enforcement power of police makes societies’ laws effective. From this, the author concludes that international law is not effective, because it is not supported by a police force. But just because police enforce laws, does it follow that that’s the only way they can be enforced? Couldn’t it be possible for local police to enforce international law? The author is assuming that the answer to these questions is no. Answer (E) expresses that necessary assumption.

Formally, this argument’s conclusion treats a sufficient condition for making laws effective _ an international police force _ as if it were necessary. The required assumption establishes that the international police are indeed necessary.

(A) is out of scope. The argument talks about whether laws are effective, not whether every single person obeys them.
(B) is a logical reversal. The argument says, No int’l police-> Int’l law not effective. From that, we can’t get Int’l police -> Int’l law effective.
(C) is out of scope. There could be other differences between these types of laws; it doesn’t matter.
(D) is out of scope. We don’t care what the "primary" purpose of a police force is.