Since Joe Biden became U.S. president, the new administration in Washington has made repeated references to “rules-based order” in international relations, accusing Russia and China of undermining this putative order.
This is as audacious as a poacher appointing himself to be the gamekeeper. For there is no power as rogue and reckless as the United States and its Western minions when it comes to eviscerating international law. The litany of illegal wars, destroyed nations, and inhumane economic sanctions is testimony to that.
However, what is going on here is a daring cosmetic facelift for the same old ugly conduct. The Biden administration’s lofty rhetoric is meant to distinguish the new administration from the previous Trump White House and its “America First” mantra. President Biden and his aides are trying to project a seeming return to multilateralism as opposed to Trump’s in-your-face nationalism. And so we hear a lot about the U.S. vowing to uphold the rules-based order.
The difference is merely rhetorical. The consistent reality is that the United States and its Western allies are seeking to pursue a unilateral approach to international relations. The Biden administration is just a little more adept compared with Team Trump at public relations and media spin to cover this reality of American hegemonic ambitions.
Lest we forget, hegemonic ambitions are anathema to a democratic world order based on equality among nations and universal respect for international law.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov nailed the charade this week in public comments following a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Moscow. In remarks to media, Lavrov said: “We noted that Russia sees some Western countries’ attempts to promote unilateral approaches in circumvention of the established collective mechanisms for developing international law-based solutions as one of today’s key challenges. We consider developing certain rules behind the back of the greater part of the international community and then imposing them on others as universal norms unacceptable and dangerous practice.”
Lavrov went on with more biting comments: “We are witnessing situational coalitions and partnerships being created outside the UN, which arrogate to themselves the right to speak and act on behalf of everyone else”.
This was a veiled reference to the United States trying to deploy the G7, NATO, the Quad, Five Eyes, and so on, as hostile geopolitical instruments to hamper Russia and China.
What is happening at an accelerated rate under the Biden administration is highly corrosive to international law and threatening global security. The United Nations and the global architecture of international relations established after the Second World War are being substituted by Western ad hoc definition of rules.
The so-called “rules-based order” is in reality rules defined by the U.S. and its allies which make others conform to their desired order.
As Lavrov points out, this is tantamount to usurping the United Nations, the UN Charter and the already existing body of international law by a wholly new Western-defined regimen which is then imposed on others. Such an outcome would be a complete negation of the postwar order that has existed. Far from “order”, it is a dive into disorder and confrontation, the like of which preceded the UN in the 1930s leading to world war.
Russia, China and other nations are well aware of the deception being perpetrated by the United States and its European and other Western allies.
Last week in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Lavrov elucidated further the bankrupt rationale of the Western powers. It is worth quoting him at length. He said: “Realizing that it is impossible to impose their unilateral or bloc priorities on other states within the framework of the UN, the leading Western countries have tried to reverse the process of forming a polycentric world and slow down the course of history…
“Toward this end, the concept of the rules-based order is advanced as a substitute for international law. It should be noted that international law already is a body of rules, but rules agreed at universal platforms and reflecting consensus or broad agreement. The West’s goal is to oppose the collective efforts of all members of the world community with other rules developed in closed, non-inclusive formats, and then imposed on everyone else. We only see harm in such actions that bypass the UN and seek to usurp the only decision-making process that can claim global relevance.”
The supreme irony is that virtue-signaling Western powers are accusing Russia and China of undermining international “order” when they are the ones who are wielding an axe at the only truly universal system of multilateralism – the United Nations and the UN Charter. The Charter, established after the war in 1945, mandates all nations to respect equal sovereignty, to repudiate illegal military force without the authorization of the UN Security Council, and to desist from interfering in the internal affairs of other states.
The unilateral use of military force and imposition of economic sanctions against other nations has become a routine, egregious violation of the UN Charter by the United States and its Western allies.
If the United States and others really did believe in upholding rules and order then they would abide by the only universally recognized rules of international law that already exist as enshrined in the UN Charter.
It is because Russia and China are strong enough to insist on the UN Charter and international law that the rogue states of the U.S. and its Western accomplices are compelled to make up other rules in order to satisfy their dictatorial hegemonic desires. In attempting such a de facto coup against the United Nations, the Western powers are endangering global security. They are trying to turn the clock back to a law of the jungle era akin to the 1930s.
The future of world peace and security depends on Russia, China and the vast majority of nations succeeding in upholding the UN against Western malign efforts. How paradoxical is arrogant Western propaganda.
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