The US has launched a new era in international relations – the era where force of law is replaced with the law of force.
International law is dead. It was brutally disrupted, even though it was not publicly announced yet by anyone. There are no more internationally agreed principles, rules and regulations which are valid for all. Due to that fact we are witnessing the mankind going deeper and deeper into a crater of anarchy and chaos.
Let’s remind ourselves how it all started. By recognition of the non-existing state of Kosovo (as independent) by certain number of states, the part of territory was snatched from the sovereign state – Serbia. Thus, the ‘domino effect’ was launched and shook foundations of the international legal order. That event is the breaking point and start of the end of the international law established following the WWII. Dramatic events that followed Kosovo precedent in international relations have proved it (South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Iraq, Syria, Crimea…). The fact that international law exists only in paper (not in practice) is already paid dearly by entire mankind. And historical experience warns us to which extent have things gone out of control and what awaits the world in the near future.
The international order, set in 1878 at Berlin Congress was destroyed by Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. After few years the WWI had began. The Versailles international order was destroyed by Hitler with annexation of Austria and occupation of Czechoslovakia. Soon after that the WWII started. The United States of America is the third imperial power in last hundred years, after Austro-Hungary and Germany, which has unilaterally replaced the international law by the law of force. Thus, the US has launched a new era in international relations – the one where force of law is replaced by the law of force. Logical result of such state of affairs in the world is a new big war and creation of a new international law. From the point of global security and safety situation is drastically undermined and it is hard to imagine what kind of terrifying consequences to the mankind could come out of this.
Everything is now brought to the level where ‘you say that you are independent, and I say that you are not’ and vice versa. For example, for US and EU a pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine are terrorists, whereas for Russia they are citizens who are legitimately fighting for their freedom and human rights which have been violated in Ukraine. In the same fashion, Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was a liberating army for Americans, whereas for Russia they were a terrorist organization. Essentially there is no more clear, universal and principled answer to problems and clashes in all regions of the world.
Precedent of Kosovo and Metohija has thus become a corner-stone for new rules of the game introduced by the US, NATO and EU. Those are rules where there are no rules. And by the definition that is – chaos.
What should Serbia do in such changed circumstances in the world? Serbia, its political leadership and intellectual elite should not allow a luxury to themselves to keep behaving as that the Berlin Wall was been brought down yesterday, instead they should adapt their foreign and political agenda to a newly emerged situation. Because, the world has changed drastically in last ten years and Serbia has to adjust its behavior in line with those changes. The US is not the only world power anymore. Russia is again the world super-power. International law doesn’t mean anything anymore to many and is used as it pleases the user.
The world changes and the crash of the international law could and should be used much better for the benefit of Serbia, its citizens and entire Serbian nation. How? For the beginning by the opening, in legitimate, peaceful and democratic fashion, the issue of independence of the Republic of Srpska, and its later merging with Serbia. If Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija were allowed to have the right to self-determination, the same right should be allowed to Serbs in the Republic of Srpska.
