The decay of the U.N. Charter-based international legal order points to increasing anarchy and war

Unless we find leaders who can lead, and act now.

To write is to hope, to hope that that despite all evidence to the contrary words of reason will be heard, and acted upon.

BACKGROUND

1) Yaroslav Trofimov, “In a New Age of Empire, Great Powers Aim to Carve Up the Planet; After World War II, nations pledged to create a more equal and law-abiding world. Now Russia, China and the U.S. are returning to an older model in which powerful countries impose their will,” Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2025 (9:00 p.m. ET);

Yaroslav Trofimov of the Wall Street Journal has written a balanced and thought-provoking essay on the decay of the U.N. Chater-based international legal order. That order is built on the cornerstone of the United Nations Carter, Article 2 paragraph 4, which prohibits “the threat or use of force” against “the territorial integrity or political independence” of any state.

We are talking about international law and the U.N. Charter, not thc ill-defined “rules-based international order”, a term which has come into vogue in recent years.

This vague term, introduced in 2008 by an Australian leader, does not require intellectual rigor or detailed knowledge of the specifics of international law. It allows leaders to violate fundamental norms of international law while still maintaining that they support the “rules- based international order”.

In short, the term does not require an absolute commitment to uphold and maintain the legally binding commitments of international law.

Its use by political leaders suggests they are not closely advised by international lawyers within their governments, or that these are simply ignored.

What Trofimov describes is not the advent of a “new international order” but the decay of an existing international legal order which took over a century and two World Wars to construct.

What promises to replace it if its decay continues is not a “new international order” but an old international anarchy, as Trofimov rightly points out.

The confused thinking of those in the so-called “Global South” doesn’t withstand the slightest serious scrutiny.

But because we lack statesmen and women of vision in key leadership roles, leaders in the West have failed to mount a strong defense of the existing international legal order.

They fail to make the case, time and time again, for the maintenance and strengthening of the U.N. Charter-based international legal order. This is due in part to their ignorance and deficient education, and in part to the fact that they wish to remain free to violate international law when “necessary” and also to support friends and allies which violate its norms.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 constitutes perhaps the most egregious example of this phenomenon, while U.S. military support of Israel as it committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza provides a more recent instance.

Political leaders now speak openly of reaching a ceasefire or peace settlement with Russia that leaves it in control of Ukrainian territory it has conquered by military force, despite peremptory norms of international law which prohibit such an outcome.

Americans speak openly of imposing punitive tariffs on China and other countries., despite the fact that such tariffs violate basic norms of the World Trade Organization agreement and associated agreements (formerly known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or GATT)) which together constitute the principle instrument of international law governing international trade.

Trofimov is correct in pointing out how the world is spiraling downward toward a state of international anarchy.

The implications are grave.

We no longer live in the 19th-century world of the balance-of-power system of the Concert of Europe. It is absurd to speak of a balance of power in a world of some 200 countries in which perhaps eight or 10 possess nuclear weapons.

The United Nations was created in December 1945, only months after the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Founders of the U.N. understood what we have forgotten, that modern weapons of mass destruction make all-out war like World War II unthinkable. Soon it became clear that the use of these weapons could end human life on earth.

Still our contemporary political leaders allow crazed military leaders and scientists to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in space-based and other programs to enable one country or another to ”win” a nuclear war. The only alternative is arms control, but no one has thought of that in a long time. Donald Trump withdrew from the last major arms control agreement, the JCPOA with Iran, in 2018.

That nations pursue new and better weapons instead of arms control confirms the historical fact that man when his brain is seized by visions of war can be incredibly stupid.

The Founders of tbe United Nations, having recently experienced the devastation of World War II, which destroyed Europe and cost some 50 million lives, resolved to change the course of history by creating new institutions for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Russia, China, and Iran want to change all that.

Tell us more, gentlemen and ladies, about how your plans are likely to work out.

Will they save the planet from the worst effects of global warming?

Will they prevent the use of ever more terrible biological and other weapons of mass destruction, aided in their design by artificial intelligence?

Will they reduce the incidence of wars or human rights atrocities which violate our most sacred beliefs in humanity and in the inviolability of the human person?

Where are the leaders who will articulate these values and considerations?

Where are the eloquent leaders such as those we had in the past who have learned from history, and who can persuade our populations and political elites that international law and the United Nations Charter are still the best tools we have to ensure the survival of the human race?

We need to be building them up and not tearing them down,

And we need leaders who get that.

FURTHER READING

1 )Iain Duncan Smith, “US weakness on Ukraine will only embolden China; Dictators do not speak the language of appeasement. The West must not repeat mistakes of the past,” The Telegraph, p )5:00 pm GMT);

Excerpt: “

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James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.

He studied the history of Nazi Germany at Stanford, and has studied and worked on human rights, judicial reform, and access to justice projects in many countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and in Afghanistan and Russia. At Harvard Law School, he taught a course on “Law, Human Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America”.

At the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, he worked on human rights cases involving forced disappearances, executions, and torture in a number of authoritarian countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Recent Books by the Author

The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024). Available on Amazon and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.

Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump (2024). Available on Amazon and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.

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