'The Dictator's golf club:' Why international law cannot stop the powerful

 Q: In the debates on Gaza, Ukraine and Venezuela crisis, the expression “violation of international law” is used constantly, often without precision. From your perspective, what is the fundamental misconception behind this widespread way of invoking international law?

 A: To accuse others of “violation of international law” has become part of what is often called “Lawfare”, i.e.. the use of law to indict one's political adversary. It is “lawfare” by other means. As public interest in international law has expanded, especially since the 1990s, also the use of “Lawfare” has become much more common. I think this is a problem of politics, of the legalisation of politics - problematic because when political interests or projects are defended or attacked in legal terms, it becomes more difficult to reach compromise on them. It is part of political polarisation.  

 

 Q: The UN’s paralysis in these crises is often described as a failure of the international legal order. Do you see these situations as genuine violations of international law, or do they instead expose the limits of what international law can realistically do?

A: I see Russia, Israel and Untied States as violating well-established legal rules on the use of force. And the absence of effective reaction shows the weakness of a certain part of the international legal order. 

 

Q: You argue that the most powerful part of international law lies in the legal infrastructure of the global economy. How does this deeper layer of law shape — or even predetermine — the conflicts we see today in Gaza, Ukraine and Venezuela?

A: The legal infrastructure empowers those actors who are already the most powerful ones. When those (powerful) states are ruled by people who are prepared to act ruthlessly, there is no effective mechanism to deter them. 

 

 Q: Many observers interpret the UN’s inability to act as a collapse of the “rule of law” in international relations. You distinguish sharply between the rule of law as an ideal and the “empire of law” as a material structure. How does this distinction help us understand the current global impasse?

 A: It does manifest the collapse of the liberal idea of rule of law that emerged powerfully in the 1990s. But to the extent that claims of sovereignty and property and the principles of contract still govern much of the international world, it cannot be said that there is no rule of law any longer - planes fly, goods are transported across the world, communications mechanisms operate and - the rich keep getting richer and the poor poorer. That is the (Capitalist) rule of law that operates quite effectively. 

 

 Q: Isn't the invention of this Trump's Peace Board further proof of the decadence of the UN and the humiliation of what remains of international law?

 A: When reading the so-called “Charter” of the Board - published originally only in "The Times of Israel” - I did not know whether to laugh or cry. It is utterly unserious and instead of being a humiliation of the UN itself demonstrated the utter lack of historical understanding and professionalism of the Trump team. It has no future. If humiliation is involved, it is attached only to the countries that have agreed to become members of this dictators’ Golf Club. 

 

 Q: If you had the possibility to reform one specific legal domain in order to weaken the structural hierarchies that fuel these crises, which area would you target first, and why?

 A: I would seek to develop a system of international distribution of resources by changing the patterns of trade and investment, as well as the rules of the international financial system, to support the weakest economies.  

 

 The conversation reveals a profoundly disillusioned and factually grounded vision of international law, far from the idealizations we are accustomed to. According to Professor Koskenniemi, law is not an impartial arbiter above the parties but a technical language that the powerful use to justify their own interests or attack their adversaries a practice known as "lawfare," law as a "cudgel." The central point that emerges is the contrast between the failure of humanitarian norms, incapable of stopping bombs, and the silent success of economic norms, which continue to operate markets and protect property even in times of war. This leads us to reflect on the role of international courts: not so much useless institutions, but rather ‘political theaters’ that often end up punishing only the weak or diverting attention from the root economic causes of conflict, offering a semblance of moral justice that, however, fails to bite the superpowers. The result is a picture that is perhaps pessimistic, but which Koskenniemi considers a realistic analysis: true peace and change will not come from a new sentence or a more severe court, but only from a radical transformation of the global economic balance of power.

  jp-llq-gn