The US has Once again Eaten the Idol of “International Law”

News:

On Sunday night, US President Donald Trump announced the “successful bombing” by the US Air Force of three key sites in the Iranian nuclear program. (BBC)

Comment:

This US strike on Iranian territory, regardless of the pretext under which it was carried out, is a perfect demonstration that the so-called international law is nothing more than a sham; the purpose of which is to legitimize the colonization of weak states by superpowers.

When there is consensus among the members of the UN Security Council on a solution to a particular international problem, they adopt the corresponding resolution of this Council and carry out the forceful imposition of their will under the guise of legality. In such a case, everyone talks about the supremacy of international law.

This happened, for example, with Resolution No. 1973, which effectively allowed the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

If the superpowers disagree among themselves and cannot agree on a consolidated position and a coordinated use of military force, then international law immediately turns into an empty slogan that can be easily ignored.

Something similar happened in 2003, when the United States, having failed to get the UN Security Council to adopt a corresponding resolution, decided to unilaterally invade the independent state of Iraq. Before that, in 1999, NATO invaded Yugoslavia, Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.

Every time something like this happens, the aggressor country tries to present its crimes in the beautiful guise of caring for civilians, restoring trampled justice and other beautiful slogans.

For example, the Ukrainian crisis is an example of intense struggle and rivalry between superpowers within the framework of the so-called "European problem". Russia, having considered that following international law creates a threat to its existence, decided to invade Ukraine, ignoring all its international treaties and obligations.

As for the strike on Iran, now the US has once again thrown "international law" under its feet. In fact, the nuclear power the US, as well as the Jewish entity, whose nuclear status is assumed, are unilaterally imposing their will on another independent state. It is worth noting that I am taking beyond the scope of this article the fact that this US aggression against Iran is taking place despite the fact that over the past decades the latter has actually been one of the main conductors of American policy in the Middle East.

On the one hand, the US vetoes any UN Security Council resolution condemning the Jewish entity, despite the fact that this “spoiled child of America” is committing every conceivable war crime against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

On the other hand, realizing that the UN Security Council, due to the right of veto, this time Russia’s, will never adopt a resolution sanctioning the use of military force against Iran; it unilaterally strikes its nuclear facilities.

The point is that the concept of "international law" cannot exist, because the concepts of "international" and "law" cannot be compatible. There are three reasons for this:

1. Law is a normative legal act that is adopted by a representative (legislative) body, i.e. the ruler. An international ruler cannot exist a priori.

2. The law must be implemented, i.e. there must be an apparatus for enforcing the law. Within the state, such an instrument is law enforcement agencies. On an international scale, this is impossible, since today's "peacekeeping forces" are a formation consisting of the armed forces of individual states. And they, in turn, will not protect international law or, for example, the sovereignty and interests of other states, if this protection may pose a threat to their state or contradict its interests, as, for example, is the case in the Ukrainian crisis and in the violation of the Budapest memorandum both by the aggressor - the Russian Federation, and by other signatories of this agreement.

3. The law regulates (unifies) relations. This regulation is appropriate in relations between representatives of one specific society, and it cannot be applied when these representatives are states, since each state has the sovereign right to establish relations or avoid them with certain states based on its interests.

Since the very emergence of the idea of international law, there has been disagreement among Western legal scholars about the essence of its rules. Many doubted its binding force. For example, Western lawyers and thinkers I. Kant, T. Hobbes, J. Austin and G. Hegel denied the existence of a general international law.

However, subsequently, under the pressure of lobbying for this idea by the superpowers, it became established in international relations.

As a result, international law with all its institutions has become nothing more than an instrument of rivalry and struggle between states such as the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China. Other states, their peoples, resources and territories have become victims of the criminal use of this instrument by these powers.

This is precisely the main reason for the instability that has engulfed many corners of the world today, where the suffering of the peoples of Palestine; Iran or Ukraine is only a small episode in an endless series of crimes by superpowers.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Fazil Amzaev
Head of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Ukraine