pick one
international law or the rules-based order
The screenshot above links to the web page it came from. Click on it to read the article in full online. In it, the author – John Dugard* (!?) – says:
The RBO is something other than international law. It is an alternative regime outside the discipline of international law which inevitably challenges and threatens international law. Charitably it may be seen as an order comprising values of a liberal order. Less charitably it may be seen as a competing order advocated by some Western states, particularly the United States, which seeks to impose the interpretation of international law that best advances the interests of the West, particularly those of the United States. Unlike international law it does not seem to be a universal order. Instead, it is an order employed by the West, again particularly the United States, to ensure its dominance.
And he ends with this:
The West’s adherence to both a rules-based international order and international law undermines efforts to agree upon a universal system of international law premised on the same fundamental rules, principles and values. An international order founded on the UN Charter and international law as it has evolved since the end of the Second World War is a sounder recipe for peace than the amorphous and discriminatory rules-based international order.
2023-08-20 / notes
*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links
with thanks to @RnaudBertrand for the heads-up thread on X (formerly Twitter) here
further notes are often appended to copies on fw