A series of recent international developments – including the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East and renewed US military and diplomatic pressure in the Americas – has prompted renewed scrutiny of how international law is being applied in practice.
Against this backdrop, questions are being raised about whether established rules governing the use of force are being tested or weakened. RTL spoke to researcher Mark Konstantinidis from the University of Luxembourg.
Actions such as those seen in Venezuela are not unprecedented, Dr Konstantinidis explained. In that context, he pointed to the United States’ intervention in Panama in 1989, when the country’s then head of state, Manuel Noriega, was removed from power and taken into custody.
Regarding the recent arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by US forces, there is broad international consensus that the operation constitutes a serious violation of international law. Many states and legal experts argue that the US military action breaches the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state without Security Council authorisation or a recognised right of self-defence. The United Nations has criticised the operation on these grounds. While Washington has defended the action as an act of self-defence, the majority of the international community does not accept this justification.
Relatively soon after the intervention in Venezuela, US President Donald Trump announced that Venezuela would hand over between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to the United States. The American oil companies that were active in the country had been dispossessed by the further nationalisation of the Venezuelan oil industry under former president Hugo Chávez. But do American companies now have any form of right to Venezuelan oil?
According to Mark Konstantinidis, this is debatable. There are strong arguments that Venezuela should have compensated American companies after the decision to further nationalise the oil industry, because that decision affected the ability of foreign firms to exploit the country’s oil. However, whether this also gives the companies in question an inherent right to the oil itself remains a matter of debate.
Konstantinidis continued to talk about how the situation between the United States and Venezuela should not be seen as the start of a legal standoff, but rather as the use of pressure in a geopolitical context. He said Washington was applying pressure on Venezuela after its president, whom he described as the country’s “de facto ruler”, was taken into custody while the regime itself remained in place. This, he argued, showed an attempt to force concessions from the Venezuelan government, adding that “no legal claim is being made” and that the dispute was “geopolitical” rather than legal.
As for Donald Trump’s threats towards Colombia and his desire to bring Greenland under US control, these currently remain a collection of threats, ideas, and proposals circulating in discussion. If they were ever to materialise, however, they would likely constitute a violation of international law.
The case of Greenland, in particular, would cause astonishment and confusion in many European countries, especially in Denmark and Greenland itself. Greenland, as an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, is part of NATO and thus a military ally of the United States. Any attempt to bring Greenland under US control, over the heads of the Greenlandic population, would violate international law. According to Mark Konstantinidis, there have been “sometimes contradictory statements from different parts of the US government”, ranging “from proposals to buy Greenland to ideas of annexing it militarily”. Both, he said, would be “incompatible with international law”. He stressed that “the people of Greenland have a right to self-determination” and that “you cannot simply reach an agreement between Denmark and the United States about what happens to them”. If it came to military action, he added, this would be an “even more blatant violation of international law”, constituting an “unjustified use of force” – and “many European leaders have recently spoken out against such a scenario”.
If we move away from the United States, other international developments also illustrate the pressure international law is facing elsewhere in the world, including Russia’s war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East, where the conflict between Israel and Palestine is currently subject to a ceasefire that remains fragile and is repeatedly strained, alongside US and Israeli actions in relation to Iran. Against this backdrop, questions arise as to whether international law is in crisis.
Mark Konstantinidis suggests that international law is instead in a transitional phase, “trying to find its place”. He adds that this new era also reflects a form of regression: what is currently being witnessed in Venezuela, together with the threats relating to Greenland, amounts to “gunboat diplomacy”, reminiscent of practices commonly used in the 19th century, and a regression of international norms.
However, Konstantinidis also points to actors seeking to counter these developments. “I do not want to be alarmist or to generalise,” he explains. “Not all countries are following this trend.” He notes that within the European Union, among its member states, and in countries outside Europe, efforts are being made to create a counterbalance. These actors, he says, are striving to respect international law “in the context we find ourselves in”, taking into account current geopolitical and strategic challenges.
The existence of the EU is a symbol of the existence of human rights. But it doesn’t mean the EU can rest on its laurels; despite there having been significant progress in Europe. Recent international events show that progress in human rights is not linear and that they can take steps backwards.
The ever-changing, and increasingly marked by conflict, geopolitical context around Europe makes it difficult to continually push for international rights. One example of this is the war in Ukraine. “The fact that the EU is trying to address the conflict in Ukraine in a manner which aligns with international law makes the issue more complicated and impacts their capacity to counter other global threats or other positions, like that of the US. The EU is trying to keep the USA on the right side of history in reference to Ukraine.”
It is increasingly clear that some countries are indifferent to international law, in contrast to the end of the Cold War where there was a rose-tinted view that international law could sort everything out. This is in the process of changing. “It’s clear to everyone that a sort of geopolitical awakening has occurred, and we are seeing in Europe that merely naming international law is not enough. It must be underpinned by credible and effective security capacities.”
Mark Konstantinidis concludes: there are a number of categorical norms that are not intended to ever change. A prominent example is the prohibited use of military force unless it is a case of self-defence. This is not expected to change. But other international laws could see amendments. “In the context of migration I expect we’ll see some changes in the next few years. We are already seeing many countries in Europe call for changes in the European human rights convention in terms of migration.”
In addition, Konstantinidis says he could imagine some states demanding amendments to international law in the case of wars and conflict. But this is less likely to relate to demands by the parties involved, and more likely to be a dispute over whether rules were broken.
