Even though the Vienna
Convention of 1961 includes protections for diplomatic and consular properties
in active war-zones, Russia’s attack of 629 missiles and drones on Kiev,
Ukraine, came within 50 meters of the E.U.’s diplomatic offices there late on
August 27, 2025, severely damaging them but killing nobody in the E.U.’s
delegation. The two bombs that hit nearby were enough to give the Europeans the
impression that President Putin of Russia did not consider himself bound by
international law in war. To the extent that fighting between two sovereign
countries, Russia and Ukraine, fits Hobbes’ infamous state of nature,
international law is really not law at all, for jurisprudence, including
mutually acknowledged rights, requires an overarching polity to enact and
enforce laws. So the E.U. could not enjoy a right to be sparred death
and destruction at its diplomatic offices in Kiev during the war there, but the
Union could claim another right at Russia’s expense within the E.U.’s
territory.
After the bombing, the E.U.’s
president, Ursula von der Leyen, said of it, “It shows that the Kremlin will stop
at nothing to terrorize Ukraine, blindly killing civilians—men, women and
children and even targeting the European Union.”[1]
Even though it was not clear that two bombs going off in the vicinity necessarily
means that Putin was targeting the E.U., António Costa, chairman of the
European Council, which represents the state governments, stated, “The EU will
not be intimidated. Russia’s aggression only strengthens our resolve to stand
with Ukraine and its people.”[2]
In return for the E.U. having just come in close contact with brazen Russian military
might, E.U. President Von der Leyen “promised to tighten the screws on the
Russian war machine with a 19th package of EU sanctions.”[3]
That so many so-called packages had already not worked gives little credibility
to what a 19th might do in terms of making a difference to Russia’s
war calculus.
Fortunately, Von der Leyen
said that the E.U. would work at the federal level “on new ways to further
mobilize Russia’s frozen assets, worth about €210 billion, that are “on EU
soil, to finance Ukraine’s defence capabilities and reconstruction.”[4]
Even though international law put constraints on confiscation of the funds, and
an E.U. spokesperson said the efforts would continue to pertain to “the
windfall profits, rather than the money itself,” I contend that if it can be
proved that Russia had violated international laws militarily in Ukraine, the
E.U. should be released of any legal and moral obligation not to confiscate the
frozen Russian assets.[5]
It would be unfair to Ukraine, as well as the E.U., were international law to
be applied to only one side while the other ignores the very existence of law
internationally in line with how Hobbes describes the state of nature prior to
any social contract.
It was obvious at the time that
Ukraine could use any additional military support that could come from the E.U.
confiscating the frozen Russian assets in the E.U., but perhaps even more
significant would be the decision that could be taken on whether international law
itself pertains to the war. In deciding that no law applies to both sides
because of a lack of de jure and de facto recognition by both
sides and enforcement, the question of even whether there is such a thing as
international law—whether jurisprudence applies in a domain in which
enforcement mechanisms are lacking, whether institutionally, as by a militarized
international federation or a coalition of the willing.
The lack of any enforcement
can be distinguished from a weakness in enforcement or even an abject failure
of an extant enforcement effort. That no enforcement mechanism existed at least
as of 2025 on international law arguably renders such “law” as merely wishes by
some people or organizations. If Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu were
able to treat international law as such, this is all that would be required to
render international law as something less than law itself. For other people to
continue to refer to international law would be an error predicated on a
mere wish rather than being a statement of fact. A dictum could be presented to
the world wherein international agreements cannot, or at least should not, be
labeled as law unless credible enforcement mechanisms exist; by credible,
I mean likely to be efficacious in constraining culprit governments. In short, federal
officials of the E.U. should not feel constrained by international law on confiscating
the frozen assets, just as Russia’s President Putin had been ignoring
international “law” in having invaded a sovereign country. With so many obvious
attacks on civilians and kidnapping of Ukrainian children, taking them inside
Russia far from Ukraine, the very concept of international law goes out the
window.
Applied to Russia and Israel
in 2025, the invasions would have had to be stopped with the invaders pushed
back for there to be such a thing as an international law against invasion (or targeting
civilians). To claim that there is such a thing as international law while a
genocide or even holocaust is underway unimpeded involves cognitive dissidence,
if not an abject refusal to think at all. In Cameron’s film, Titanic, an
employee of the ship tells third-class passengers that they cannot go through a
passageway only to be knocked into the rising water by Dawson. Without
enforcement, the employee can only be regarded as strongly expressing a desire.
Similarly, a food-aide or medical-aide worker in Gaza could shout again and
again at Israeli tanks, you can’t come into Gaza City, but if those
tanks keep rolling in, it is not as though the worker would be supposing that a
law is being broken, for there is no viable enforcement to force the Israelis
out of Gaza; not even a coalition of the willing had emerged to do so in more
than a year. Netanyahu could easily dismiss such shouting as pleas rather than
even a demand, much less a law. Anyone watching the tanks continue
onward would regard any onlooker making a demand as crazy. I submit that it is
just as crazy to refer to international law in the context of the
Russian and Israeli invasions in the mid-2020's.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU Summons Russian Envoy after Strike Damaged the Bloc’s Delegation in Kyiv,” Euronews.com, August 28, 2025.
