By Tom Fowdy
Several days ago, the United States, alongside 13 other countries, issued a joint statement affirming the international arbitration ruling pertaining to the dispute in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines, dated 2016. The ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration claimed that China's "Nine-Dash Line" over the region had no basis in international law, although it avoided making a judgment over the sovereignty of specific islands in the sea itself.
However, just days after making this statement, which demanded that "internationally lawful uses of the sea as reflected in UNCLOS must be upheld," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio published a video presentation, and then an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled, "Why We're Dismantling the International Criminal Court." The byline of the article stated: "America never agreed to a world tribunal that can override our own courts and the Constitution." Its text goes on, saying: "Most of us would struggle to imagine a world in which U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America."
Hold on a minute, is Marco Rubio stating that jurisdiction under international law does not apply to the United States? And that America itself cannot be held to account by international courts? Ironically, this is exactly the same thing China says about the ruling pertaining to the South China Sea, which is more ironically pushed by the US under an international law which itself is not a party too. We could of course go on all day about how the United States brazenly violates international law, but even by their own standards the scale of this rhetoric and stated ambition is terrifying, for the US Administration is not just talking about "ignoring it" as they always do, either tacitly or overtly, but "dismantling", launching a campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC) and worse, as a US official told CNN, making "Nations that refuse to reject the ICC's false authority while relying on US assistance… come under increased scrutiny."
While the US itself has never been a signatory of the ICC, for as usual, international law is a weapon, not a standard for America to be held to; as Kenneth Roth told the Guardian, this is about the United States violating the jurisdiction of the court by committing war crimes on the territory of a nation who is signed up to the Rome Statute, Iran. As he notes: "Trump wants to be able to commit war crimes on the territory of countries that have accepted the court's jurisdiction – that's what this is about." The US has of course, launched an illegal conflict against a country with a bombing campaign which has caused mass civilian casualties, including hundreds of school children.
While attempts to refuse all attempts at international accountability by its troops are not new, hence the American Service-Members' Protection Act (2002) authorises military action against The Hague itself should they be captured, we are still nonetheless in uncharted territory. Why? Because the Trump administration is committed to a uniquely arbitrary brand of unilateralism which is actually committed to dismantling the entire international order itself in the name of American interests, which includes contempt for every multilateral institution. While past US Administrations would seek to at least operate through most international institutions (except the court) or ignore them at worst, the Trump Presidency seeks to actively fight and roll them back. The US has left the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNESCO, the Paris Climate Accords, amongst others, has actively paralysed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by refusing to appoint new judges, and of course seeks to "dismantle" the ICC.
Such aggressive unilateralism is textbook "MAGA" foreign policy, which seeks to shore up American power, utilise it arbitrarily and force the world to submit to one-sided terms. While US hegemony in the 1990s was built on a doctrine of openness and the belief in inevitable liberalisation (end of history thesis), the kind of hegemony MAGA seeks to build is different because it operates on a Trumpian, zero-sum "win-lose" game that demands America benefits solely and only, at the expense of everyone else. This is exclusively a "might makes right" mindset which does not pretend to be anything else, seeing international law as merely a nuisance and obstacle to its own agenda.
But this of course poses the question: if America does not care about international law and openly comes out seeking the destruction of the International Criminal Court, why should you then expect China to respect an arbitration ruling? And moreover, why do US allies cling to Washington so readily, even as the US itself actively destroys the institutions and norms which they claim to believe in? If national sovereignty is as good an excuse for Washington, then it certainly is for China, and therein is how the current geopolitical climate accelerates the destruction of a stable and orderly world, replicating the dangerous multipolarism of pre-1914.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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