“REVALUE INTERNATIONAL LAW”

Will the crisis around Ukraine be the hinge to return to respect for international law?

 

By Danny Smith

Contrary to what they believe in Washington, the crisis mounted around Ukraine has served to expose who are the main violators of international law and the real actors that threaten peace and security. International relations between sovereign states are based on a set of general rules and principles arising from custom that tend to a good understanding of these public actors.

In the eyes of anyone, this is not something extraordinary to understand, but for thirty years up to this point, we have witnessed a peculiar and very ancient interpretation of these relationships. The Anglo-Saxons, especially the United States -and implicitly- have been applying that odious separation between "civilized states" and "barbarians" for the application of law, a conception born of the modern law of a group of Christian states and therefore, a law imbued with Christian morality. They are the same ones that perceived themselves and still seem to do so as the only "civilized powers."

From this arbitrary perspective, only this reduced spectrum of actors make up the so-called “International Community”.

This interpretative dichotomy was exposed (although an attempt was made to conceal it) since 1990 with the crisis and the Gulf War due to the invasion of Iraq in Kuwait and would continue to be blatantly replicated with subsequent crises and wars in which Arab-Islamic states would be involved. involved. Here the “just war” argument became part of Washington's speech to explain this aggressiveness towards public opinion. Under this (Westernist) conception, the Anglo-Saxon powers (USA and Great Britain), arrogating themselves an authority, disregarded all the treaties and protocols referring to respect for human rights, which are the basis of modern international law with a universal character and scope, leaving of being the humanitarian component, exclusive of any power or morality.

It was not necessary for the treaties and protocols of The Hague and Geneva to be recognized by each state for the inhabitants of the entire planet to enjoy the rights and obligations that they contemplate. The preamble of the Organic Charter of the United Nations of 1945 is foreseen as a pillar for world peace and stability "Create conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained" .

It was assumed that the members of this international organization sought to avoid the abuses and arbitrariness that had been committed in the past and that led to the Second World War.

But the bipolarity between East and West that emerged after the end of the Second World War came to politically disrupt these principles, adulterating the meaning of these principles and complicating the understanding between the states depending on whether they belonged to one or the other bloc. Thus, the principles of the universality of respect for human rights and justice began to be relativized, intoxicating their application by ideology and discriminating according to the convenience of the moment.

But since the fall of the USSR in 1991 this intoxication was far from disappearing. On the contrary, it happened to take a new form and even a new dimension. Nor does NATO disappear despite the disappearance of its rival, the WARSAW PACT. It is then that surviving disguises its activities under the argument of being a provider of Multidimensional International Security that has obviously responded to its own interests.

Within the framework of the hegemonism of an emerging superpower like the US, without limits or rivals to mark them, it began to promote a distorted conception of international law based on the use and abuse of the argument of "human rights" and peace missions to finally, end up violating both concepts.

Within this conception that carried the signature of George H. Bush and the entire sector of the neoconservatives and their partners in the pro-Israeli lobby in Congress, the United States made the Jus ad bellum (right to war) a state policy and a tool on which (and protected by the United Nations) mount their warmongering adventures. But at the same time, through a continuous dissemination of propaganda and disinformation of situations to which this odious understanding was applied, I try to delegitimize the right of resistance that peoples and nations have against the aggressions that were perpetuated under this ruse. This is how Washington and its allies, with the collaboration of the media, mixed the term "terrorism" with "armed resistance" to try to delegitimize the actions of Iraqis and Afghans against the occupation.

The tactics to disguise these inconsistencies against international law have been changing but have not been abandoned. They have only adjusted to the new strategies that the centers of power have planned. What we see today around Ukraine is an example of this. While Washington and London predict an alleged Russian invasion without tangible evidence, they cannot explain why they themselves have hundreds of thousands of soldiers and combat vehicles deployed in countries bordering the Russian Federation.

But why so much certainty about a possible invasion, even risking tentative dates? With no evidence in sight and only mere statements in the air, the predictions of Biden and his Secretary of State seem to be taken from a top hat. The trick looks quite simple and does not go through clairvoyance or "intelligence reports". Groups of foreign mercenaries and neo-Nazis trained by special forces led by the CIA and MI6 would set out to create the provocations to elicit Russian responses. In this way, groups belonging to the Nazi-affiliated “Azov” battalion would attack the point of contact, forcing the Dombas militiamen to respond. Obviously, the media conglomerate will not expose these details and will only focus on magnifying the response of the "pro-Russian" separatists.

Precisely in the last hours some provocations have materialized without the separatists losing control. The exchanges of shell fire in the city of Stanytsia in Lugansk are undoubtedly part of those intentions. No doubt the Ukrainian generals and their NATO colleagues expected this imaginary spill of armored vehicles crossing the border. But unfortunately for them, Vladimir Putin has once again proved himself smarter and on the day the invasion was supposed to take place, tank and artillery brigades were heading back to Moscow.

Clearly, Moscow shows that it respects international law and far from the accusations that the Anglo-Saxons launch through the media with this, it decompresses the situation but: Will the American troops, armored vehicles and missile systems that are deployed not only in Ukraine be withdrawn? but in the other countries bordering the Russian Federation?

The insistence on continuing with the absurd accusations answers this question.

Thus we see the desperate attempt to materialize that prophecy of the "Russian invasion" and the one who is most interested in it is Joe Biden himself, whose popularity is plummeting and with serious domestic problems that he does not know how to solve. A war could lift his image and save his administration from premature shipwreck. So, the solution emerges predictably…passing international law under the soles of your shoes.