The Myth of the Liberal International World Order – a Stratagem by the West to Pacify the Global South.
- Hitesh M.
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
In recent weeks, the American military intervention in Iran has resurfaced the question (or reaffirmation) of the lack of judicial oversight and international legal basis for inter-state intervention, as it did last month in Venezuela when the US captured its then leader, Nicholas Maduro, and as it did in essentially every period in history when the US intervened (or invaded) in other states.
At the World Economic Forum this year, Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney delivered an address speech which alarmed and attracted internationalists to step up against the rise of great power politics under a Trumpian-era world order. Carney said that there is “A rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality” and that “the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”
His tone rings blaring alarm bells surrounding Trump’s presidency, though whilst not specifically mentioning Trump (one can put two and two together).
It all sounds pragmatic, and there is verisimilitude to Carney’s message: American threats against Greenland, turbulent and unjust imposition of tariffs, and disregarding not just international institutions but the undermining of American courts as well. Trump’s behaviour enables other world leaders to do the same and be left unchecked: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Hungary’s Orban straying further away from the European Union, Reform UK’s rise. So there is in fact truth to Carney’s rhetoric, that Trump’s presence accelerates the degradation and undermining of international institutions.
But this narrative intentionally neglects instances in which Western alliances have negated the international order (or bent them) when it favoured them. This is simply a logical fallacy to cater to Western interests.
This rule-based order was said to have developed post-WW2, with the founding of the United Nations and a legal basis set out under the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Charter to prosecute what are deemed as ‘crimes against humanity’.
Vietnam, 1965: American intervention during the Cold War due to fears of communism quickly proved that the West did as it wished, scrupulously crafting a supposed international legal case entrenched in anti-communism resting on the back of capitalist interests in Washington and Bretton-Woods bureaucrats. The end of the Vietnam War saw up to 3 million civilian deaths.
Afghanistan, 2001: Post 9/11, American and British military forces engaged in a troops-on-the-ground invasion of Kabul without a United Nations Security Council Resolution, eventually leading to roughly 2400 civilian casualties and displacing thousands of people.
Iraq, 2003: The US-led, UK-backed invasion lacked UNSCR authorisation, with the US and UK justifying the war on the false premise that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs). Approximately 3,750–4,300 Iraqi civilians were killed in the initial invasion phase alone, with estimates of total violent civilian deaths over the broader war ranging into the hundreds of thousands.
Palestine: Since the formation of the state of Israel, from the first Nakba to the present day genocide, Palestinians have faced displacement, death, and destruction. Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, labelled the war in Gaza a ‘genocide’. But preachers of international law intentionally turn a blind eye to international lawyers to protect vested interests with the Israeli regime. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are deemed illegal under international law, but where is the international community condemning this? The UK, Canada, and the EU have seemingly slithered back into their caves in ivory towers when it comes to condemning the crimes of settler colonialism. The West is quick to label Hamas a terrorist organisation, but if held to the same standards then Israel’s actions necessitate its labelling as a terrorist and pariah state.
This all happened before Trump; it’s not new. Western powers are beginning to taste the medicine they’ve prescribed to the rest of the world that’s kept us pacified, subordinated, and medicated by the drug of Western hegemony.
Under international law, Iran has a right to self defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. But its response to American and Israeli initiated attacks are being condemned by states which purport to uphold international law. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement saying they were “appalled by the indiscriminate and disproportionate missile attacks launched by Iran against countries in the region, including those who were not involved in initial US and Israeli military operations.” But where is this criticism for the United States and Israel? Where is the consultation of the UN Security Council? Paradoxically, the alleged prestige of the UN Security Council is undermined by the powers yielded by the permanent members which are granted solely due to military might, economic grandeur, or colonial presence.
Liberal democracies have always somewhat behaved like far-right governments, they just hid it better under the guise of international law. If liberal democracies were actually serious about international law, it would be applied unilaterally rather than selectively. Before Trump, American governments have rambled on about international law, and neither the US nor Israel are party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and yet they have the gall to speak of state sovereignty.
Mark Carney may speak of ‘middle powers’ rising up to fill the gap of American retreat in international order, but until diplomatic standards are applied unilaterally across the board this is a strawman argument. For it is only a matter of time before the ‘middle powers’ are squeezed once more by the superpowers, and they relive a ‘might is right’ era which the Global South has always experienced. Who has this liberal international world order worked for? It prevented interstate war in Europe, yes, but created an even greater Western hegemony to expand its sphere of influence implicitly through the guise of ‘free trade’ and ‘spreading democracy’.
This is emblematic of a broader and deeply troubling pattern that the architects of the liberal international order are all too willing to cloak themselves in its institutions when sitting in judgement of others, yet just as willing to shed that cloak the moment those same institutions dare to turn their gaze inward.
Writer’s note:
The more you study politics, the more you read the news, the more you realise you’ve imbibed the narrative of liberalism and the supposed ‘international order’. My inspiration for this article came from watching Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum, in which I realised that Western nations have come to an epiphany that they can no longer behave the way they want to anymore. Let’s be real, liberalism is neo-colonialism, just with a pink bow on it to make it more cutesy. It is a myth that is sold to us to believe that everyone is meant to benefit from it, yet it constantly fails those that are marginalised and underprivileged. The remnants of colonialism still stain international institutions, and whilst the West can never wipe its hands clean of the blood spilled from colonialism, the least it could do is stop dressing up exploitation as development, and give everyone an equitable seat at the table.
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