The future of world
peace and security depends on the
vast majority of nations succeeding
in upholding the UN against Western
malign efforts.
May 15, 2021 "Information
Clearing House" -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.
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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.
