Trump and the Destruction of International Law

The American president is shaking up the entire planet by questioning a number of international institutions.

The flurry of executive orders that the new U.S. president has signed since he took office, as well as threats (against South Africa, Canada, Denmark, Greenland and Mexico, as well as the mass deportation of migrants, and of Palestinians from Gaza) has overwhelmed the entire world. Indeed, several of these executive orders disregard international law, and consequently, global cooperation.

Of course, successive U.S. administrations have often disregarded international norms when they have seen them as obstacles to their own interests: military interventions in Serbia-Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) without a U.N. mandate, withdrawal from UNESCO (1984 and 2017) and the Human Rights Council (2007 and 2018), among others. However, the attacks by the new U.S. administration have reached an unprecedented level in its determination to destroy the multilateral system.

As a privileged observer of the U.N. and international relations, with status at the institution for the past 40 years, Cetim* was already asking questions about the liquidation threats hanging over it in a book published 20 years ago. Are we there?

Faced with economic competition from China and other “emerging” countries, America’s main motivation is maintaining dominance at all costs while posing as the defender of transnational corporations. This attitude has been recognized by Europe’s globalized bosses, who are already used to competing with governments for fewer and fewer legal constraints on their profits. In reality, it is a pursuit that will only increase conflict, especially wars that are growing more destructive, including nuclear war.

The commercialization of the world by the private sector, with the exploitation of cheap workers and natural resources, happens with weapons and the implementation of coercive measures involving “permanent wars” or even “preventive wars,” that the U.S. invents. The U.S., along with its NATO allies, leads the way by accounting for two-thirds of the world’s spending on weapons. This is the price of enslaving people. In this context, the U.N.’s very existence, and all the more so that of International Geneva, is compromised if the other states, particularly Switzerland, remain idle.

A Shield

Cetim has always defended and remained committed to the multilateral system embodied by the U.N. while encouraging social movements to invest. This is evidenced by the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants, adopted in 2018 by the U.N. General Assembly. Despite its shortcomings, the U.N. acts as a shield against the arbitrariness of the strongest for the protection of the weakest. In this respect, it contributed to decolonization and was heavily committed to abolishing the apartheid regime in South Africa. Its mechanisms are essential to developing international standards and protecting human rights to ensure social cohesion and justice for victims of crime as well as the promotion of democracy and solidarity-based development. It is in the interest of most states, including Switzerland, to defend multilateralism.

*Translator’s note: Cetim describes itself as a center for research and information on the mechanisms at the origin of maldevelopment and is also an interface with social movements.