Asked about the recent upheavals in US and global politics and the role of law in international affairs, Professor of History Michael Clarke from King’s College London recently stated that “International law as a universal construct is dead, is gone, it is now dead,” pointing to the rise of three autocrats now dominating the scene (America’s Trump, Russia’s Putin, and China’s Xi Jinping) and the consequent inevitable collapse of any credible legal order. His comments tap into recent debates about the “crisis” of international law and what the future may hold for this crucial area of law. I do not know what knowledge of “international law” Prof. Clarke has, or whether he was essentially referring to high-profile security crises (“high politics”), many of which date back to the “golden age” of the UN system post-1945 (see Palestine). However exceptionally dramatic and complex current (new and old) conflicts like Ukraine and Palestine are, it is hard to believe that the vast and long-established network of legal relationships between states, and between the latter and non-state actors alike—the almost unlimited number of areas governed by over 250,000 international treaties, customary rules, and over 2,000 sectoral global regimes—will fall to pieces as a result of contingent geopolitical considerations (even though, admittedly, the new geopolitical context may stay with us for some time to come).
International law remains the indispensable language to distinguish legal from illegal claims in global affairs, to create a framework for inter-state cooperation on genuinely global issues, a framework to be used to advocate for and protect the rights of individuals and peoples within and across national boundaries. And individual states surely can walk away from most treaties they voluntarily signed, can fail to ratify them, or can even breach them (together with any general principle) if they do join in or contribute to their formation. This is realistic yet politically and legally costly, even more so in the era of social movements and digital platforms in which we live. True, new alliances can be built, and new “global” arrangements can be attempted by flamboyant autocrats, but a completely lawless world is an extremely implausible proposition.
Interestingly, though, the key point that Prof. Clarke seems to make is a different one: he essentially appears to equate “universal international law” with the “Western world,” thereby implying that international law as a Western construct “is dead.”
If that reading is correct, Prof. Clarke may be right. In that case, what may be dead, however, is not the law itself but rather a certain view of it built (for some leaders, and perhaps for Clarke himself) around the inevitable march of the world (the whole of it) towards liberal democracy (remember Fukuyama’s End of History in the 1990’s?). In other words, what is probably dead is the hyper-optimistic view (massively popular in many corners of the West) that international law can be used by Western leaders to signal a post-national era, a cosmopolis that progressively replaces states, their national interest, and their national structures. That remains indeed a fantasy, both conceptually and militarily, and has much contributed to the rise of autocrats, among other things (see Michael Sandel’s insightful take on the rise of Trump in the US).
I feel that, overall, an international realignment is on the cards, a resetting of mentalities, an attempt to mitigate the harshest effects of new realities, not the ditching of a centuries-old legal system that will inevitably inform peace settlements with heroes and villains alike. In fact, for various reasons, most states—from China to Ukraine—not to mention state hopefuls, are extremely keen on international rules, and even when they are not, they still offer legal justifications of some kind for their actions (however weak, distorted or absurd they may sound in specific instances). The explosion of cases before the ICJ (open to states only) says it all.
But international law will never be a spurious “law of mankind,” a law without states or different national polities. Kant conceded that and pointed to a jus publicum civitatum understood as a law of states in relation to one another, not a law of a single world entity—a civitas maxima—governing itself (however much he might have wanted this to emerge). “International law” will continue to provide a legal framework for a principled reconciliation of the interests of states and their peoples’ right to self-determination, especially (by no means exclusively) in matters of peace and security.
Take Ukraine. It will be difficult to end the war without a comprehensive settlement involving, besides the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Americans, and the Europeans. By not sending troops or providing direct areal defence by means of collective self-defence (as permitted by international law), the West has made it (almost) impossible for Ukraine to push the Russian aggressor back to pre-2022 lines, that is, to win the self-defence war. And that means, tragically, either the possibility of a ceasefire followed by a “frozen conflict” (like Crimea right now—part of Ukraine only in the books) or a general settlement along the lines of what the “international community” did at Dayton in 1995 following the collapse of Yugoslavia (with Milosevic and others at the negotiating table, even though he was later indicted at The Hague by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia).
Europe can and should play a major role in working towards a just peace in Ukraine, and it is very good news that the United Kingdom and other European states have taken on some ownership of this process. Whether that can still change the military dynamics on the ground, bring the Americans back on board, and save the international law principle that aggressors cannot be rewarded remains to be seen. But inevitably, any European (or Euro-American) security guarantee, and indeed any overarching peace settlement, will stem from the pragmatic reconciliation of key international law principles—the prohibition on the use of force, the right to self-defence, and the right to self-determination—operational (enforcement) capabilities, and realpolitik. Most of all, it will require a synthesis of the various national interests at stake, whether we like it or not.
Cover photo: US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 28, 2025. Zelensky on February 28 told Trump there should be “no compromises” with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the parties negotiate to end the war after Moscow’s invasion. (Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP)
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to see and interact with our latest contents.
If you like our stories, events, publications and dossiers, sign up for our newsletter (twice a month).