The Disappearance of International Law

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

The horrors of the Second World War sparked the creation of international organizations and international laws to ensure that such horrors would never occur again. The center piece of these international bodies was the United Nations and its regional and functional agencies that were designed to provide international guardrails to limit the use of force. The National Security Act of 1947 was designed in part to make sure that U.S. administrations played an active role in managing and even transforming the international community.

There was an economic component as well, including the Bretton Woods System, which included the World Bank to stimulate international development in those countries most devastated by the war. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was designed to manage international trade, and the International Monetary Fund was created to monitor the balance of payments. U.S. officials were at the center of all of these institutions, placing Washington at the center of the world of multilateralism. The current global trend toward isolationism and ultra-nationalism is threatening these institutions.

As a result of increased international activity, the staff of the White House grew from several dozen individuals in the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt to the current level of more than several thousand in the administration of President Joe Biden. The bureaucratic growth was marked by the Council of Economic Advisers (1946), the National Security Council (1947), the Special Trade Representative ((1963), the Office of Management and Budget (1970), and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1976). The Supreme Court has demonstrated exceptional deference to the powers of the president in the field of national security, and the U.S. Congress largely accepted without question the U.S. role in the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and a variety of other international organizations and security arrangements.

Nevertheless, there are too many engines of chaos in the international community that point to greater violence far beyond the boundaries of the immediate protagonists. Two and a half years of war between Russia and Ukraine threaten to engulf Central and Eastern Europe in a greater conflict. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that has not restricted his travels to member countries of the ICC let alone ameliorated his terrorist tactics in waging the war.

A year of war in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas threatens a greater regional conflict that could involve two major non-Arab players, the United States and Iran. Again, the ICC is considering arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, but there has been no let up in the genocidal campaign that Israel is waging in Gaza or the forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. Israeli use of U.S.-supplied weaponry is certainly inconsistent with international law, and points to U.S. complicity in Netanyahu’s war. Only Britain thus far has demonstrated a willingness to limit the supply of certain weapons to Israel.

Meanwhile, the West pays no attention to the global catastrophe that is Sudan, African’s third largest country, where millions have been displaced, tens of thousands have been slaughtered, and there may soon be a famine that will rival the famine that enveloped Ethiopia in the 1980s. Like Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Gaza, the civil war in Sudan will be an engine for chaos far beyond its borders. The nations that border Sudan are already fragile, particularly Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya. There is arms smuggling throughout the region, and it is very likely that Sudan—like Libya—will split into two geographic parts. And there is the added risk from outside participants—such as Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Iran— that supply the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) or the Rapid Support Forces RSF). The ICC is currently gathering evidence of the crimes and atrocities committed by the SAF and the RSF.

With the exception of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, which renounced war as an instrument of national policy, there are no international laws that regulate—let alone prevent—war. Genocide and torture are banned by various protocols, but this has not gotten in the way of Putin, Netanyahu, or the Bush administration in fighting the Global War on Terror. The atomic weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were acts of terrorism because neither city was a strategic target, and the overall purpose was to force a Japanese civilian community to pressure its leaders to surrender to the United States, the very definition of terrorism.

U.S. atrocities in Vietnam should have led to a serious debate regarding the need to differentiate between military and civilian targets, but there has been no international discussion of the importance of agreeing to humane rules of war. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of innocent civilians are being killed in Ukraine and Gaza, and more than 150,000 civilians have been slaughtered in Sudan.

Two decades of U.S. warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan led to large numbers of civilian deaths. The Defense Department went to significant lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of war. It invited U.S. journalists to “embed” with military units but required them to submit their stories to the military for pre-publication review in order to co-opt the embedded journalists and make independent and objective reporting more difficult. It has erased journalists’ footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan. And it has refused to disclose statistics on civilian casualties. “We don’t do body counts,” General Tommy Franks once said.

The United States is devoting insufficient attention and resources to the possibility of bilateral dialogue with potential adversaries that could ameliorate the international horrors that currently exist. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has stated that there are “no barriers” to nuclear negotiations with the United States. There has been no response from the Biden administration. China wants the United States to ease its pressures on Beijing in order to stabilize bilateral relations and to enter discussions of nuclear matters. At this point in time, President Joe Biden is the first U.S. president to avoid travel to China in more than 50 years. Putin is looking for ways to reopen a dialogue with the United States, but Biden believes he has nothing to say to the Russian president.

The Biden administration is taking credit for building an alliance system in Asia against China, rebuilding the alliance in Europe against Russia, and working to isolate Iran in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Impressive partnerships have been formed with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines in the Asia Pacific region; NATO has been expanded to its geographic limits in West and East Europe; and efforts are being made to encourage Arab nations in North Africa and the Middle East to isolate Iran.

Perhaps it’s time for Biden’s lame duck presidency to rest on its international laurels and find ways to engage three key adversaries (Russia, China, and Iran) in order to reduce the level of international risk and to manage the political indicators of more stable relations. Crippling sanctions haven’t worked in limiting North Korea’s nuclear program, but perhaps diplomatic inducements should be given an opportunity. The formation of the quasi-alliances could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy that will do more harm than good to the international scene.

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