Without political will there is no law between countries

In the cold light of the war in Ukraine, everything looks different. Also international law. A familiar mechanism with strong symbolism and high ambitions, but not very often on the front page with great successes. But the question and the emotion are no less. Start an investigation, make lists, start collecting evidence, appoint a judge! A separate tribunal, an existing international court, could countries handle it individually? Lawyers, lawyers and other experts are now appearing everywhere with their analysis of the Russia-Ukraine case.

I like to read it because it is such a finely civilized worldview, in which rules and standards revolve around, not about power, possessiveness or domination. But you also know that it’s ‘for later’. First the fire has to be brought under control. In the meantime, the wrecks are becoming visible, now that the water is receding, as the cliché goes. Defense spending is too low, the military underpaid, the administrators ‘naive’, the civilians unprepared. And what about the ‘international legal order’? Can he punch a dent in a pack of butter?

In fact, that question is taboo, because international law is the only mechanism there is to stop, prevent or deal with the barbarism. If war does break out, it has already failed. International law only works if everyone want to that it works. And is therefore by definition a china shop, easy to circumvent by not signing treaty x or y, voting against it, vetoing it, not extraditing the defendants, etc. What you then have left is a moral theater play, such as the MH17- process, with an open end. International law is an orphan, because there is no international government. Superpowers sense that flawlessly. They think their own right is better and prefer not to join in, or only à la carte.

But if it does work, international law is a monument to civilization. Then come arrests, trials, pleadings and sentences, followed by Mladic-style convictions. But you can never count on it. ‘Putin a war criminal’ is then an expression of powerlessness. The optimists say that if Navalny becomes president, Putin will go into hiding and a tribunal will be ready. When that happens, justice will prevail. But then it should still be there.

Last week, the Russian Federation was expelled from the Council of Europe and also withdrew from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). End of an era, that’s what it felt like. I was brought up with the ECHR as Europe’s collective life insurance policy against WWIII, which every citizen can rely on directly if their own human rights are violated – in Strasbourg. A unique pressure valve in the rule of law. So also for every Russian, however futile and flawed the practice may be. Now Russia has only been a member since 1996 and has largely ignored the Strasbourg verdicts. Still, it was the only superpower that wanted to be tested, at least in theory, against international legal standards. And now that fairytale was (completely) over.

Is the ECHR now also such a wreck that comes to the surface at low tide? Does it still have the power and prestige it once had? Can it take this blow? Russia isn’t the only country that didn’t care. In the Netherlands, PVV and FVD have been wanting loudly for years. There is a clear trend in Europe – not just in Poland and Hungary – to prioritize ‘own law’ over international law. Unwelcome statements from Strasbourg were pretty easily brushed aside, with the United Kingdom as the repeat offender. The fact that British participation in the ECHR did not blow out the window with Brexit can in retrospect be called a miracle. Populism and nationalism undermine international law. International judgments are not regularly executed. One ‘pandemic of parochialism’, it is called, which is not limited to the ECHR.

In short, if the world now has expectations of the ‘international legal order’, it should also adhere to them itself. And yet to sign those treaties, to respect the verdicts and to strengthen international law, as a good example. That helps enormously, if you later want to impose that on someone else.