Abandoning international law means abandoning more than just rules
In the media image: Tingey Injury on Unsplash
According to Larissa van den Herik, Professor of International Law, it is not naive to have faith in international law. In ‘NRC’ newspaper, she says that the alternative is a world in which brute power dominates and security is lacking.
International law, Van den Herik says, is often branded as wishful thinking, particularly in view of repeated violations by major global powers. ‘Critics like to say that the prohibition of the use of force doesn't work, but I think it does,' Van den Herik adds. The ban on the use of force between states helped to prevent a new world war after the Second World War. International law embodies hard-won experience, and that experience shows that violence rarely leads to lasting solutions.
She calls the shift in the role of the United States a crucial development. While for a long time the US was the main sponsor of the international legal order, we are now seeing a ‘new face’, Van den Herik says. Law needs power in order to be enforced. The fact that the US is now stepping back does not mean that you should abandon the law, but rather that power must be organised differently.
Van den Herik explains that Europe and Canada are at a crossroads: either they choose the order model of the Helsinki Agreements, based on cooperation and rules, or they follow the path of the Yalta model, based on the influence of dominant powers. She warns: ‘If we claim that the law applies today but not tomorrow, and for you but not for me, then we are abandoning the law and losing the very language we need to condemn, for instance, Putin’s war crimes – in effect, giving him free rein.’
More information?
Read the full article in NRC (€, in Dutch)