In current global affairs, this feels like a futile question with no answer that seems just. We have to ask why the scaffold of international politics has been reduced to a philosophical debate, and who is responsible for the conditions that have created and fueled this delegitimization of global governance. Conversations regarding international law often revolve around the charters and treaties created and signed by Western powers.
But how does this neglect to consider the historical role of colonization in shaping the very laws that guide geopolitics? Currently, with rising convictions that ‘might’ maybe does make ‘right’ in our world, the questions of whether international law has the same influence it had 70 years ago, or whether it is even applicable to the current global stage, are at the forefront of politics. I argue that there can be no meaningful future for international law, both as a discipline and in practice, without engagement with its colonial and imperial past.
The very basis of intergovernmental relations, the League of Nations, was an imperial assemblage, reinforcing colonial structures under the guise of international law. These structures persist, impacting how the world sees and delineates African nation-states in the 21st century. Even the United Nations Security Council, which, arguably, is responsible for maintaining peace and security at the international level, serves the interests of the global north.
The chief question, therefore is not why international law is failing, but who it is failing? Security is the core of all discourse regarding law, whether political or unpolitical, domestic or international. Asking “why” presupposes a set of assumptions about who can speak security, for whom security is mobilized, and for what purpose.
Instead of seeing security as an objective condition, as a hierarchical binary wherein one individual’s security is traded for another’s, we should look at security as a performance. Treating security as a speech act, something to be performed through language, makes it impossible to ignore the influence that political narratives have on our understandings of what makes somebody secure or safe. In doing so, the empirical limits of treating security as a clear-cut political good are proven obvious, and ask us to look at our responsibility to challenge the spaces that need transformation and how that can be facilitated.
International law functions differently for the global north than it does for the south
Look at the Trump administration’s address to the nation regarding the bombings of Iran: He makes no attempt to give a singular reason or justification for bombing Iran —probably because he doesn’t need to. He has no international audience to convince, at least not in the same way Bush did when speaking about the War on Terror. Consequently, President Trump didn’t go through the legal channels via the Security Council — why would he?
Security council consultation would merely be a performative act, something to only delay the attacks. This war has made it clear, more than ever, that international law functions differently for the global north than it does for the south. And even more so, that certain nation-states are given a longer leash from both governing international bodies and the greater international community.
Growing evidence that we are moving from a unipolar American world to a multipolar world, with Israeli and Russian power at the forefront, shows that ignoring the history of international law has fatal consequences. Not only does it undermine the legitimacy of foreign affairs, but it also neglects to secure the safety of the global majority that doesn’t fall under the governance of the great powers. The future of international law seems bleak, and, frankly, without radical change, it is.
So, ask the convoluted questions: Why don’t we consider the inescapable history of international law? Whose security are the current systems of international law designed to protect? And as a result, whose insecurity are we creating?