Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's video address to the participants in the session of the 11th St Petersburg International Legal Forum 'Foundations of the international legal order vs the "rules-based order": The future of international law,' Moscow, May 12, 2023
12 May 2023 09:45
905-12-05-2023
Colleagues,
I am delighted to offer my greetings to the participants in the 11th St Petersburg International Legal Forum.
Since its inception, the forum has established itself as a respected platform enabling experts to exchange views on Russian and international law. Efforts to bring about coordinated approaches to overcoming legal challenges, as well as promote law studies and education in this sphere are quite relevant today.
The same can be said of today's session: 'Foundations of the international legal order vs the "rules-based order": The future of international law.'
As you know, the United States and its Western satellites pretend that they can rule the destinies of humankind, and in doing so have placed their bets on building a unipolar world order. The Western minority decided to replace the UN-centric international legal architecture, which emerged in the aftermath of World War II, by some kind of a rules-based order. These so-called rules cannot be legally binding since Washington and its allies have concocted them within their narrow group of countries, and interpret them as they please. But then, they seek to impose these rules on the international community as something everyone must abide by. They try to punish those who voice their dissent by using all kinds of illegitimate instruments, from power politics to libel and defamation in the information space.
It is obvious that the rules-based order the West has been promoting has a clear neo-colonial bias. It consists of dividing the world into the chosen ones who are viewed as exceptional, on the one side, and all the others who are supposed to cater to the interests of the golden billion.
This is a Western-centric order, and it goes hand in hand with double standards. For example, the right to self-determination is declared an absolute imperative whenever this benefits the West. Suffice to mention Kosovo's withdrawal from Serbia, which happened without a referendum. The fact that Paris and London have retained some of their former colonies despite the many UN resolutions on this topic is another example. However, if the self-determination principle runs counter to the Western geopolitical interests, as it happened with the free expression of will by the people of Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, who voted to join Russia, not only does the West forget that it happened but it angrily condemns these people for the choice they made and punishes them by imposing sanctions.
Today, Western countries seek to shift the blame on someone else by accusing Russia of violating international law. In doing so they refer to the international law they had trampled in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya when they unleashed their wars of aggression against them. They tried to do the same in Syria.
The West has also trampled upon the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs, a fundamental tenet of the UN Charter. Do you remember the third round in the presidential election staged in Ukraine in late 2004, or the so-called colour revolutions in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan? In a similar vein, they openly supported the bloody government coup in Kiev in February 2014. By the same token, there were persistent attempts to re-enact the power grab scenario in Belarus in 2020.
Our Western colleagues should also bear in mind that the sovereign equality of states is a key principle enshrined in the UN Charter regardless of their size, form of government, political, social or economic order. At the same time, let me reiterate that the Western elites have taken on board the worst colonial-era traditions in their effort to split up the world into what they call democracies and authoritarian regimes. The overtly racist statements by EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who described Europe as an idyllic "garden" and the rest of the world as a "jungle," demonstrate the very essence of this syndrome of exceptionality.
Washington and its henchmen have been criticising us for what they allege was a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Once again, I have to emphasise that the special military operation is being carried out as per Article 51 of the UN Charter, which sets forth the right to individual and collective self-defence, of which the UN Security Council has been notified in due course. The operation came as a response to an armed attack by the Kiev regime. As part of the special military operation, Russia seeks to prevent Russians and Russian speakers from being exterminated, while also eliminating long-standing security threats created by the West along its borders as a way to anticipate and counter an even broader aggression. Let me remind you that Russia made every effort until the very last moment to de-escalate tensions in Europe. This was the purpose of the well-known initiatives President Vladimir Putin presented in December 2021. Meanwhile, Kiev and its patrons openly undermined UN Security Council Resolution 2202 - adopted in 2015, it contained the Minsk Package of Measures. This has been proven by the cynical statements by former leaders of Ukraine, Germany and France, who acknowledged that they spent seven years sabotaging these agreements in order to supply more weapons to Ukraine and enable it to confront Russia.
Making extensive use of illegitimate unilateral restrictions has become an integral part of the rules-based order for the Western countries. This is a gross violation of the UN Charter's letter and spirit. Only the Security Council has the right to enact and enforce sanctions.
Institutions designed to promote peaceful dispute resolution mechanisms have been increasingly attacked as part of this rules-based order. The International Court of Justice, a statutory UN body whose reputation in interpreting international law can hardly be underestimated, has come under immense pressure. Following their deranged logic, the neo-Nazi Kiev regime and its American masters used this court to file a lawsuit against the Russian Federation under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Overwhelmed by the pressure it faced from the collective West, the court so far ordered the so-called provisional measures. At the same time, more than 30 countries, most of them EU and NATO members, have been trying to side with Ukraine in these proceedings. We view these actions as an overt act of abusing ICJ proceedings, as well as attempts to directly pressure and blackmail the court.
The International Criminal Court provides yet another example of this very rules-based order. This is a truly pseudo-judicial institution and a useful tool in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons. The ICC has demonstrated its bias and ineffectiveness, as well as unprofessionalism. Whenever it became involved in regional issues, it never made things any better, let alone brought about a political settlement.
Today, this institution has come up with new outrageous decisions, including by unilaterally expanding its jurisdiction. It has been ignoring the principle of immunity for government officials which constitutes a violation of international law. This policy has already caused a deep crisis in ICC's relations with African countries. Today, the ICC, headquartered in The Hague, is taking its cues from its Western sponsors in its attempts to use all kinds of flawed methods and manipulations to become relevant once again. By the way, the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Romania and Japan openly made targeted contributions to enable the court to review the Ukrainian dossier. What a great example of independent Western-style justice.
Colleagues,
Russia has been a consistent advocate of respecting international law with the UN Charter at its core, as well as of strengthening the legal and democratic principles in interstate interaction. This is why we remain committed to reinforcing the UN's central and coordinating role in international affairs. We will keep doing everything to make maximum use of our membership in the Security Council, as well as in other UN structures, and within the Group of Friends in Defenсe of the Charter of the United Nations.
I would like to wish all of you every success in your work and all the very best.
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