[…] On 2 June 2022 President Biden published an op-ed in the New York Times titled ‘How the US is willing to help Ukraine’ in which he declared that Russia’s action in Ukraine ‘could mark the end of the rules-based international order and open the door to aggression elsewhere, with catastrophic consequences the world over’.There is no mention of international law. Later, in a press conference at the conclusion of the June 2022 NATO Summit Meeting in Madrid, he warned both Russia and China that the democracies of the world would ‘defend the rules-based order’ (RBO)Again, there is no mention of international law. […]
According to this view, the rules-based international order may be seen as the United States’ alternative to international law, an order that encapsulates international law as interpreted by the United States to accord with its national interests, ‘a chimera, meaning whatever the US and its followers want it to mean at any given time’. Premised on ‘the United States’ own willingness to ignore, evade or rewrite the rules whenever they seem inconvenient’, the RBO is seen to be broad, open to political manipulation and double standards. […]
Second, the United States has placed interpretations on international law justifying the use of force and the violation of international humanitarian law that are controversial and contested. Its interpretation of the right of self-defence to allow pre-emptive strikesand the use of force against insurgents/militants characterized as terrorists are widely disputed.The resort to the use of force as a species of humanitarian intervention in the 1999 bombing of Belgrade, conducted under the auspices of NATO,is likewise disputed. The interpretations placed on Security Council resolutions by the United States and the United Kingdom, to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2003and Libya in 2011have been much criticized as unlawful pretexts for regime change. Läs artikel