07 Jan 2023: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

E. Editorials

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Crisis in international law

Syllabus: Effect of Policies & Politics of Developed & Developing Countries on India’s Interests

Mains: Various views on International Law

Context: This article discusses the ongoing crisis in international law due to various factors.

Introduction:

• The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict highlighted the ‘crisis’ dimension of international law soon after the crisis of Covid 19. 
• To restore post-world war international legal order, the United Nations (UN) Charter was adopted explicitly to outlaw war.
  • While the UN Charter has succeeded in stopping another world war, it has failed in stopping inter-state wars. 
• Ongoing conflict and several other factors such as the resurgence of covid-19 are going to further test the limits of international law.

The geo-economic challenge:

• The world post-World War II was a bipolar one with great power competition between a ‘capitalist’ America and a ‘communist’ Soviet Union. 
• The end of the Cold War started a ‘unipolar’ moment that led to multilateralism and resulted in “relative harmony” among the major powers. 
• However, even during this period, there was some conflict such as the aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1999 and the invasion of Iraq by western forces in 2003.
  • These conflicts were in complete disregard of the UN Charter. 
• In the ‘relative harmony’ phase, democracy became more widespread, universal human rights were more widely acknowledged, and there was general agreement to uphold the rule of law, with multilateral organisations and independent international tribunals serving as arbitrators.
• However, these universal values are under threat as we have entered a multipolar world involving the securitisation of international law. 
  • Today international law faces a new ground reality with the diminishing control of the “liberal” and “capitalist” West and the emergence of an “autocratic” China and an “expansionist” Russia.

Different views on International Law:

• International law is interpreted differently by different countries.
• Under the Chinese and Russian versions, the territorial integrity of nations and the sovereignty of states is not given much importance.
• China views international law as an instrument in the service of the state which is contradictory to the rule of law theory in liberal democracies where the law’s function is to constrain unchecked state power. 
• The Russian approach towards international law believes that the basis of international law is not universal but cultural and civilisational distinctness. 
  • The Russian interpretation of international law is in complete violation of the UN Charter. It distinguishes between countries that are truly sovereign and countries that possess nominal or limited sovereignty, such as Ukraine. 
• Westphalian sovereignty, or state sovereignty, a European-developed principle, defines global standards in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory. 
  • The principle underlies the modern international system of sovereign states and is enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

International economic lawlessness:

• An important fallout of the rise of the geo-economic order is the associated spread of economic protectionism. 
• The trade policy landscape has undergone a significant transformation over the last decade. The drive towards economic integration that characterised previous decades has now faded, which is evident in the slow pace of trade growth in recent years. 
• Nowadays, independent economic and security tracks have started to converge. It heralds the geo-economic order. As the difference between the size of the Chinese and American economies began to shrink at a rapid pace, the U.S. seems to be giving up on free trade and embracing protectionism.
• This is reflected in Brexit and the US’ America First Policy.
  • The U.S. recently adopted the Inflation Reduction Act which aims to transition to clean energy by providing massive industrial subsidies to domestic American companies at the cost of imports and foreign companies.
• Further, trade wars and the halting of  World Trade Organization (WTO) talks are another recognition of economic protectionism.
  • The U.S. has also strangled the WTO’s effective dispute settlement mechanism by relentlessly blocking the appointment of the Appellate Body members. 
• All these challenges are going to lead to greater lawlessness in the world economy in the coming years.

The populist challenge to International Law:

• International law is expected to face challenges from populist and ethno-nationalist regimes in several countries such as Hungary, Turkey, Poland, and Israel. 
  • Populism is a political movement that attempts to appeal to “the people” by convincing them that its leaders alone represent them and their concerns that are being ignored by a real or perceived “elite establishment.”
• Populists question the validity of international law and label it as “foreign law,” which is harmful to their country’s interests.
• Populists also criticise international organisations and legal systems for impeding their efforts to advance the interests of the ‘pure’ people they assert to speak for.
  • They enact domestic laws to protect the ethnic identity of the ‘pure’ people even if these laws undermine international law.

Nut Graf: There is an ongoing  “discipline crisis” in international law.  As this clash between different visions of international law sharpens in 2023, several countries will brazenly pursue unilateralism and economic nationalism which will inevitably lead to ‘international trade lawlessness’.