EU’s foreign policy chief says the erosion of international law began when Russia invaded its neighbor without consequences, triggering wider instability across the world.
EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Thursday that the recent developments sparked by US-Israeli attacks on Iran resulted from the “erosion of international law.”
“Today, the chaos we see around us in the Middle East is a direct consequence of the erosion of international law. It started when Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, invaded its neighbour, with impunity and a good measure of cynicism,” Kallas said in her speech at the University of Munich in Switzerland.
Kallas noted that Russia’s war on Ukraine “sent a signal around the world that there is no accountability for one’s actions; that the rulebook has been thrown out the window.”
“Without restoring international law, together with accountability, we are doomed to see repeated violations of the law, disruption and chaos,” she added.
Kallas argued that China is also benefiting from the current “erosion of rules” by “preparing the ground for decades to assume its place as a great power.”
“It is expanding its nuclear stockpile faster than anyone else. With impressive strategic patience, China has been creating dependencies around the world, threatening countries in the East and South China seas, bankrolling Russia’s war against Ukraine and reimagining the world order in its own image,” she added.
Kallas said China’s such actions pose risk to bloc’s “economic model,” claiming that they also undermine “the multilateral system that has ensured that rules actually rule.”
“And then there is the fundamental reorientation across the Atlantic, which goes by a variety of names from ‘realignment,’ to ‘new dynamic’ and even ‘rupture.’ The shift in U.S. foreign policy has already rocked the transatlantic relationship to its foundation, with aftershocks in other parts of the world. But the impact on the international order is seismic,” she added.
Kallas pointed to a “paradigm shift,” along with a new world order “characterized by competition and coercive power politics; a world order dominated by a handful of military powers who aim to establish and secure spheres of influence.”
