All bets are off when it comes to regulating war. Such a
condition is virtually by definition beyond the confines of law. Even
international law is but an impotent dwarf next to the raw force of a
governmental regime at war—whether with its own citizens or another country. To
be sure, the International Criminal Court had by 2017 made a dent in holding
some perpetrators of atrocities such as genocide accountable for their deeds.
Such efforts were still the exception, unfortunately, when Russia, China, and
Bolivia vetoes a resolution in the U.N. Security Council that would have
penalize Syria’s Issad regime for having used chemical weapons on Syrians. The
reasons for the vetoes—and the fact that Egypt, Ethiopia, and Kazakhstan all
obstained—implies that holding perpetrators accountable by international means
had not yet become a priority at the international level.
Russia’s envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, defended the veto by
calling the resolution “politically biased.” He asserted, “This is railroading
the draft by the Western troika.”[1]
In other words, the Russian government put its rivalry with the West above
holding a friend accountable. Only months earlier, the U.S. Government had
refused to veto a resolution condemning its friend, Israel, for retroactively
legalizing illegal Jewish settlements on private Palestinian land. So it was
with some clout that the American ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, accused
Russia and China of putting “their friends in the Assad regime ahead of our
global security. . . . It is a sad day for the Security Council when members
make excuses for other [members] killing their own people.”[2]
What may not be noticed prime facie is the implication that a regime killing
its own people is deprioritized when government officials prioritize friendly
governments who commit such acts.
What would it take for the world as a whole to attach more
importance in terms of other priorities to stopping and preventing crimes
against humanity? Even intent to protect the precedent of national sovereignty—something
China’s government has made a priority at the U.N.—is a deprioritizing of the crimes
that a government commits against its own people and other peoples. The message
is that such acts are normal, or at least tolerable. Perhaps it would take only
a massive occurrence for the world as a whole to stop and admit that the usual
international relations are themselves no longer viable because they are
insufficient, given the priority suddenly
put on the crimes themselves.
[1]
Somini Sengupta, “Russia and China Veto Penalties on Syria Over Use of Chemical
Arms,” The New York Times, February
28, 2017.
[2]
Ibid.
