A Path Back To An International Law-Ruled World Order
Date
11/16/2024 2:06:03 AM
(MENAFN- Asia Times)
To paraphrase the Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci, a great variety of“morbid symptoms” appear in times of crisis. One of them is the slow but constant erosion of international law.
Over the last decades, the use of force in Iraq, then in Ukraine, and now in Gaza and Lebanon, not to mention many other less-publicized conflicts, has strained the standing of traditional law.
This could be attributed to the continued fading from the minds of the United States and other states of the idea of the law of nations as a system of governance in international relations.
Historically, the disconnect between law and power has not always been so obvious. For a long time, legal questions were not the exclusive confine of jurists. The prevailing doctrine was natural law, that is, ethics.
It mainly involved philosophical inputs as to what was right, just and fair. Today, international legal questions are answered in terms of what is lawful based on the rules agreed between sovereign states.
But
rules are sometimes difficult to interpret, especially in the context of lingering conflicts involving multiple state and non-state actors.
It's no wonder that classic realist thinkers saw law as eminently fluctuating according to situations and circumstances. For them, law could only play a very limited role in international affairs, one that was always and inevitably circumscribed by power realities.
It would be unfair, however, to judge international law only by its shortcomings or failures. The truth is that we sometimes expect too much from international law and remember it only when we need it.
A more positive way to see things is perhaps to understand how law succeeds in constantly and effectively adapting to the international environment. And, more generally, what is in the cards for the global legal order in an age of strategic competition?
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