ATwith them, the rule of law is regressing. The powerful of the day – Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin or Narendra Modi – believe only in power struggles. The American, the Chinese, the Russian and the Indian share this conviction: politics prevails over law. They twist their necks at two of the great illusions that were fostered in the early 1990s. Liberal democracy then passed for the political horizon of the XXIe century. At the same time, the end of the Cold War raised hopes for a rules-based international scene.
These last twenty years confirm a double regression: that of the rule of law as a mode of governance; that of a somewhat codified international order. Leaving aside the question of whether there is a cause and effect relationship between these two phenomena. Let us limit ourselves to pointing to a news that confirms both: in Washington, the erosion of American democracy; in Syria, in Idlib, the dirty mouth of brute force against an abandoned population.
The UN is paralyzed
Nearly 900,000 civilians fleeing the terror of the Russian and Syrian bombings, sleeping under the canvas of makeshift tents, in mud, cold, fear; old men, children, whole families driven from their last refuge, the Idlib massif, in north-west Syria and who crowd the border with Turkey: war without faith or law – and the 'one of the largest population movements observed in a long time. Anything goes, isn't it, since Idlib is home to the last quarter of the armed rebellion against the Bashar Al-Assad regime, some 20,000 fighters, most of them Islamists.
Two singular facts mark this tragedy. On the one hand, these civilians do not flee to areas of the country controlled by the Damascus regime. They know what to expect. On the other hand, the Russians – supported by the Chinese – have, at the UN, vetoed all humanitarian aid. As if this exodus had to take place and in the worst conditions. Why ?
It will be objected that we have seen worse since 2000. It will be said that one of the deadliest blows struck at the dream of an international order bordered by a few rules came in 2003 when the United States enslaved Iraq. So many remarks that only confirm this reality: the century is settling in the law of force, the "law" of the fait accompli, the normalization of territorial annexation – the world of Modi, Putin, Trump and Xi.
