From International Law to the "Rules-Based International Order"
Professor Glenn Diesen
I recently presented at the “Stop the Wars - Strengthen International Law” conference, discussing the transition from international law to the more ambiguous concept of a “rules-based international order”. The “rules-based international order” is presented as international law plus humanitarian law, while ignoring that this introduced contradictory principles. So who decides which rules apply in terms of, for example, territorial integrity versus self-determination? While international law is based on the principle of sovereign equality, the “rules-based international order” is based on sovereign inequality. The “rules-based international order” does not contain specific rules, it is not internationally accepted, and it does not deliver order.
I wrote in greater details about the “rules-based international order” here:
Destruction of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria - and most recently massive support to the coup nazis in Kiev bringing the world on the brink of a nuclear war with Russia. Rule based world order?
It is a disaster for Europe and the world that Sahra Wagenknecht did not get in. That is the only factor worth noting in the German election, where the stage is now left exclusively to the war powers, secondarily the opportunistic AFD, which is labeled as an extreme right-wing party – although you can't get any further into the extreme right than the foreign policy of the "moderates" and the so-called left wing in Germany and the rest of Europe with their militaristic armament and massive support for the neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
Now only Trump can ensure peace in Ukraine and that the world thus avoids a third World Nuclear War with Russia. Who else? Europe, China, India, the working class, civil society/grassroots from
“below” (the latter has not even been able to mobilize a peace movement, i.e. it is solely Russian restraint in the form of failed retaliation/reciprocity towards NATO’s escalating violation of Russia’s red lines that has so far prevented a direct war between NATO and Russia. So who else but Trump can realistically prevent the continuation of war in Ukraine and even worse?
The hope of peace and the world therefore de facto stands and falls on whether a billionaire, Trump, can currently dismantle/deconstruct the war-promoting structures.
Trump and his circle do not primarily stand for “unpredictability”, as the Trump-hating war establishment and its media heap its ignorant, easily manipulated opinion with. In that case, unpredictability is a positive concept in this context, since the antagonistic forces predictably stand for war, death and destruction. As Peter Hegseth argues, it is the realistic position that is Trump- the government's theoretical basis.
This is in contrast to the liberal interventionists and the "left wing" theoretical basis, which is normative-idealistic value-based, such as liberal democracy, liberal human rights, etc. In accordance with realist theory, the Trump government thus appears to reject NATO membership for the EU's and the "left wing Kiev Nazis", and thus acknowledges that Russia, like the US and the EU, has a security need.
What is otherwise noticeable in the debate about Ukraine is the unique anti-intellectual obscurantism, support for the (EU) imperialist war powers, de-theorization, de-politicization and ahistoricity that characterizes the post-Cold War generation. Although it is of course the task of working class and not social movements such as the peace movement to confront the current EU imperialist war powers, it is thought-provoking that the Kiev-supporting post-Cold War generation generally does not seem to understand the background of the Ukraine war (NATO's expansion into the post-Soviet security sphere since the fall of the Wall), the context (the illegitimate seizure of power in 2014), and is also not able to logically put the war into perspective (which can only mean even more deaths on the battlefield and with the potential for escalation to nuclear war in Europe).
Dear Glenn, good post (in relation with the other mentioned). Can I translate this article into Spanish with links to you and a description of your newsletter?