By Jonathan Diebold
Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro. The Zionist State’s genocide of the Palestinians. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. These actions and many other recent horrors have been declared ‘illegal’ and war crimes under international law. Yet they continue to happen, leading many to conclude that we are witnessing the end of international law as we know it. There is certainly truth in this, and the consequences of what we’re seeing will no doubt be serious.
For socialists, however, international law and the institutions that claim to uphold it are not, and never were, the neutral arbiters they are often portrayed as, let alone benevolent forces of justice.
Never neutral
For capitalist states, international policy has always been a direct continuation of domestic policy. World orders – structured relations between states based on treaties and international laws – have existed since the emergence of these states. Such orders exist to mediate conflicts and ensure the continued flow and expansion of trade. The modern iteration of this world order, known as the ‘Rules-Based International Order’ or ‘Liberal International Order’, emerged after the Second World War, and was constituted by global organisations such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organisation, as well as regional institutions such as the EU. The openly-stated aim of these organisations was to promote free trade and economic liberalisation, i.e. making the world a better place for big business.
The defeat of the Axis powers in Germany and Italy led to the revelation of the horrors of the Holocaust, which radicalised millions globally in seeing the barbarism of fascism. This coincided with the period of revolutions in the colonial world, which ended the direct rule of the old (mainly European) powers in Africa and Asia. In light of these experiences, the global powers felt the need to portray themselves as more humane, and forces for human progress. The countless imperialist wars, counter-revolutions and genocides since then have exposed this as a cruel lie.
Moreover, when countries in the global south sought to promote their own industrialisation, the IMF and WTO were used to crack open trade barriers and flood them with cheap goods and loans they couldn’t pay, ensuring they were trapped in debt and a race to the bottom, enriching a small elite but with disastrous effects on ordinary people. In this way, international law was a cornerstone of the implementation of neoliberalism on a global scale from the 1980s on. Since the collapse of the Stalinist states, this capitalist international order has expanded to encompass the whole world.
The institutions of international law are totally dominated by the world’s major imperialist powers, and act to promote their interests. The US, UK, France, China and Russia have permanent places on the UN Security Council, with veto rights. When it comes to states like the US, international law is functionally irrelevant – the UN was impotent in the face of the US invasion of Iraq, and resolutions condemning Israel’s actions or the embargo of Cuba have been routinely ignored. Now, the pretense of a ‘Rules-Based Order’ is being dispensed with in favour of naked imperialist aggression.
What is the real force for change?
If international law won’t bring international justice, what will? For socialists, the only force that will liberate the people of any nation or of the world as a whole is the working-class and oppressed masses. We oppose imperialist interventions into countries like Venezuela and Iran, not because we support these regimes, but because we know that those meddling act only in their own interests, and in fact will make things worse for ordinary people living in those countries.
We support the self-organised movements from below of workers and young people, wherever they exist, to liberate themselves from their exploitative and oppressive ruling classes. And we advocate for international solidarity from working-class people around the world to support them.
None of this means that international law can never be used. Indeed, it’s increasingly useful for exposing the hypocrisy of liberal politicians. We recognise that putting Israel in the dock with the ICJ case in January 2024 was a positive tactical action, as it exposed the extent of their genocide to a global audience. But the ICJ won’t stop the genocide in Gaza.
Socialists should use every tool available to them – the courts, parliaments, international law – without having illusions in them as the way to bring about the change we need. Fundamentally, the liberation of all people relies on the action of the international working class.
