In the course of recent years we have witnessed many geopolitical and legal changes, which shaped our current perception and the real influence of International Public Law. Throughout this period one main issue persisted – enforcement. As long as there is no new solution to this, International Public Law will remain in decay. We might need to re-invent UN, we might need to introduce new International Court, we might need to invent a new form of sanctions.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, end of the Cold War era, introduction of the International Criminal Court we did witness a great development of international rules and regulations, which in theory and in practice, made life of millions better. However while the Western world was profiting and benefiting from these developments, the rest of the world did not necessarily end up on the winning side. Invasions, wars, ethnic cleansing and genocides is just a short list of wrong deeds which were committed in the past 35 years and what is more horrible is that all of the mentioned cases received different attention due to political issues. Law and lawyers were silenced. Court rulings were overruled by political games.
Polarisation and double standards brought us to a stage where lawyers (and not only) have to be careful which term to attribute to acts of mass killing of people, while words “war” or “genocide” became politicised. We started living in a world where our trust in law is decreasing due to a fact that judges and lawyers can be easily bribed and where the veto power in the UN Security Council can be used not for the protection of world order, but for exclusive needs.
International Public Law was always dependant on international politics, but nowadays it became merely a tool in hands of politicians, therefore it has to be reinvented. There are hundreds of ICJ rulings and UN Security Council resolutions, but there are a few examples of implementation of those and even less examples of enforcement. For example, citizens of each country can be manipulated as long as there is media and internet and these citizens may bring into power a dictator, who will decide to invade a neighbouring country. Is there any UN institution, which will stop such dictator from doing so? I doubt it, stronger countries would potentially be able to stop such course of events, but not a single law or an international institution.
Oddly enough our modern society may be moved by a single social media post, but UN institution is yet unable to stop a war.
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