The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.
There has never been a rules-based international order. What is new is admitting it.
The American arrest of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro (and his wife), accompanied by the use of military force, has understandably prompted many in Europe to lament what they see as a breach of the rules-based international order.
The purpose of the following reflections is to place this assumption in perspective. If we confine ourselves to the permanent members of the UN Security Council, only the United Kingdom and France can be said to respect — more or less consistently — what Europeans refer to as “the rules-based international order.”
Russia is waging war in Ukraine in blatant violation of international law. China’s conduct in the South China Sea has no place within the framework of international law. And neither does the American arrest of Maduro.
In other words, the majority of the permanent members of the Security Council have — diplomatically speaking — a relaxed relationship with the UN Charter and other fundamental components of the rules-based international order.
That the United States, Russia, and China adhere to the principles of the rules-based international order only until they no longer do so is nothing new. The difference lies rather in how such violations are justified.
The US continues to legitimise its actions in a normative language of human rights, responsibility, and international order — even when the arguments are thin. Russia and China, by contrast, increasingly refer openly to spheres of influence, historical entitlement, and civilisational particularities.
Russia — and before it the Soviet Union — has a long history of invading countries within its sphere of interest that failed to fall into line.
China has been a member of the WTO for 25 years without ever genuinely respecting the organisation’s rules.
The US, for its part, has carried out a substantial number of military operations without a UN mandate since World War II.
‘Normative phantom’
The question, therefore, is not when these three countries abandoned respect for the international order. The question is rather whether they ever truly embraced it in anything other than a rhetorical sense.
Upon closer reflection, one is compelled to conclude that “the rules-based international order” is, to a large extent, a normative phantom — one to which small and medium-sized European states have shown a particular fondness for rhetorical devotion. Much like their principal cooperative institution: the EU.
This is not to say that norms are without significance. Rules do matter — but they operate asymmetrically. They discipline the weak far more effectively than they constrain the strong.
In principle, I see nothing wrong with toasts to principles that are difficult to live up to on a daily basis. The point of a toast is to establish an ideal: a conception most people recognise and respect. If successful, this has two advantages.
First, it provides a norm to which one can appeal when it is violated. Even if one does not tell the full truth at all times, the norm of truthfulness is a good thing.
It offers a starting point for legitimate criticism when a specific person, in a specific situation, is not being truthful — and that is useful. Second, norms can, in fortunate cases, induce shame in those who violate them — and public shaming when they are caught in flagrante.
No society can function without such mechanisms of control and self-control. Seen in this light, there is of course nothing wrong with European countries – and the EU as a whole – professing their commitment to the rules-based international order.
The problem arises when Europeans genuinely believe that the world is in fact governed by rules, and that violations are consistently called out and sanctioned. Why?
Power over rules
Fundamentally, this has little to do with reality. What ultimately governs the course of world affairs is power. Great powers comply with rules as long as it is in their interest to do so.
The moment that interest disappears, so does compliance. Small and medium-sized states can only hope that the great powers will continue to play by the rules.
For if they do not — what then? Nothing. In practice, the rules become void, and the law of the strong prevails.
For this reason, the real problem with the American arrest of Maduro is not that international law has once again been set aside. Historically speaking, that is nothing new.
What is new is that Europeans still pretend to be surprised. That great powers recognise the “rules-based international order” only when it suits them is therefore not new.
What is new is merely that they are increasingly no longer bothering to conceal it. Sex also existed before the liberalisation of pornography. What was new was not that people suddenly began doing things they had never done before. What was new was that they no longer felt ashamed of it.
In this sense, the new international reality resembles the liberalisation of pornography more than the emergence of any genuinely new, epoch-making activities in bedrooms around the world.
In a world where strong powers act openly on the basis of interest and power, weaker actors must either build real power, align themselves with power — or accept their irrelevance.
Appeals to unenforced rules change nothing. Protests without sanctioning capacity change nothing. Moral outrage without material means changes nothing.
For Europe, this means that the question is no longer whether the rules-based international order has been violated. That question is irrelevant.
The only relevant question is which instruments of power Europe possesses – military, economic, and strategic – and whether there is political will to use them. If not, Europe will continue to speak the language of norms in a world that has moved on to the language of power. Elegant — but without effect.
Henrik Dahl (EPP) is a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Denmark.