Date: 09/01/2023

Relevance: GS-2: Effect of Policies and Politics of Developed and Developing Countries on India’s interests.

Key Phrases: International Laws, the USA, Cold war, Multipolar World, Communism, Securitisation, Populism, Protectionism, Relative Harmony, US-led West, Balancing Behaviour, State of Lawlessness, Inflation Reduction Act, Neoliberal Consensus, Characterisation of the Crisis.

Context:

• 2023 is going to further test the limits of international law, not just because of Russia’s ongoing illegal war, but also due to several other factors that will play out in the next 12 months and beyond.

Key Highlights:

• Securitisation, populism, and protectionism threaten the core universal values enshrined in international law.
• Currently the world is facing some major challenges which need to be settled down.

Geo-economic Challenge:

• The world post-World War II was a bipolar one with great power competition between a ‘capitalist’ America and a ‘communist’ Soviet Union.
• The end of the Cold War led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism.
• This ‘unipolar’ moment gave a leg-up to multilateralism and led to three decades of “relative harmony” among the major powers.
  • However, even during this period, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombed Kosovo and the Western forces invaded Iraq in complete disregard to the U.N. Charter.
• The ‘relative harmony’ phase saw the spread of democracy, greater acceptance of universal human rights, and a global consensus for maintaining international rule of law with multilateral institutions and independent international courts acting as referees.
  • However, these universal values are under threat as we have entered a multipolar world involving the securitisation of international law.
  • Now, International law faces a new ground reality — the dwindling of the ‘liberal’ and ‘capitalist’ West and the rise of an ‘autocratic’ China and ‘expansionist’ Russia.
  • The Westphalian notion of international law is now pitted against Chinese and Russian versions that believe in gaming international law for national interests.
• As this clash between different visions of international law sharpens in 2023.
  • Therefore, it will push international law into a deeper crisis.

State of Lawlessness in the World:

• The concomitant spread of economic protectionism is seen as an important fallout of the rise of the geo-economic order.
• The rise of China has caused controversy in the U.S., which is desperate to ensure its continued hegemony.
• The USA is fast backtracking on the neoliberal consensus of interdependence and non-discrimination in international economic law.
  • The Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S., which aims to transition to clean energy by providing massive industrial subsidies to domestic American companies at the cost of imports and foreign companies, can be seen as an example of the USA policy.
  • Similarly, rejection of the recent World Trade Organization (WTO) panel reports by the USA, that held the U.S.’s protectionist industrial policies masquerading as national security objectives illegal, is another indication.
  • The U.S. has also strangled the WTO’s effective dispute settlement mechanism by relentlessly blocking the appointment of the Appellate Body members.
• All these challenges are only going to become ominous in 2023 leading to greater lawlessness in the world economy.

Challenge caused by the Populist:

• International law in 2023 will continue to face challenges from populist and ethno-nationalist regimes in several countries such as Hungary, Turkey, Poland, and Israel.
• Populists attack the legitimacy of international law by referring to it as foreign law, which is inimical to their national interests.
  • International law, in the populist scheme of things, is often reduced to a mere law of coordination.
  • This law of coordination is not aimed at international cooperation to develop and espouse common global values, but only to ensure a minimal relationship between countries with common ideational moorings.
• Populists also attack international institutions and international courts for thwarting them from pursuing the interests of the ‘pure’ people they claim to represent.
  • They enact domestic laws to protect the ethnic identity of the ‘pure’ people even if these laws undermine international law.

Characterisation of the Crisis: Views of the Scholars

• Some Scholars characterize the crisis in international law in different ways such as-
  • B.S. Chimni believes that a crisis in international law will exist if the phenomenon of imperialism is not addressed.
  • James Crawford argued that crises occur in international law because of “the absence of any constitutional order, other than constitutional order of States”.
  • Jan Klabbers contends that the crisis of international law today is the crisis of liberal democracy.
• Regardless of the characterisation, the fact remains that the liberal international legal order is under attack from many sides.

Conclusion:

• The international community should fight back against the relentless assaults posed by securitisation, populism, and protectionism on core universal values to establish peace in the world.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. What are the major challenges that led to the crisis in the international laws? Also, suggest a solution for a peaceful world with well-established international laws. (150 Words).