Rules Or Law? Good Reads
What governs the world order—rules or international law? This twitter exchange raises some interesting questions:
It appears from this exchange that we’re talking about two different things.
First things first. Is there any way to determine, in general terms, what we’re actually talking about here? What is a rules based order, and what is international law?
Interestingly, there is no Wikipedia page for “rules based order”—but there is an extensive page for “international law”. That suggests that international law is something that we can actually know—that there is a generally accepted body of knowledge on the topic. For example Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has a degree in international law. Who knows someone with a degree in “rules based order”? I don’t. I’ve never heard of a university department specializing in “rules based order.”
Here’s how Wikipedia describes, or circumscribes, the concept of international law:
International law, also known as International Ethics, public international law and law of nations, is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between nations. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for states across a broad range of domains, including war, diplomacy, trade, and human rights. International law aims to promote the practice of stable, consistent, and organized international relations.
The sources of international law include international custom (general state practice accepted as law), treaties, and general principles of law recognized by most national legal systems. International law may also be reflected in international comity, the practices and customs adopted by states to maintain good relations and mutual recognition, ...
International law differs from state-based legal systems in that it is primarily—though not exclusively—applicable to countries, rather than to individuals, and operates largely through consent, since there is no universally accepted authority to enforce it upon sovereign states. Consequently, states may choose to not abide by international law, and even to break a treaty. However, such violations, particularly of customary international law and peremptory norms (jus cogens), can be met with coercive action, ranging from military intervention to diplomatic and economic pressure.
Here’s the rest of the TOC for the entry—it clearly suggests that there’s a lot that we can know about international law, that there’s some real substance to it:
The suspicion arises that the preference of the United States for talking in terms of "rule based order” is because the US sees a “rule based order” as a substitute for, an alternative to, a workaround for international law. It means we do whatever we find convenient—that’s the One Rule to, uh, rule all the little rules. One example. Under international law it’s difficult to justify these kinds of statements:
Since deliberately killing civilians is a no-no under international law, presumably it’s OK in a rules based order. Or, at least, under the rules we recognize it’s OK when our side does it but not when the other side does it. Hmmmm.
What else can we learn about the nature of the beast: Rules Based Order?
Notice in these two very mainstream definitions there is reference to law, and yet … it’s not quite that simple. It’s much slipperier:
National Interest defines a rules-based international order as
The notion that all are bound by a global set of rules, an international law above power
The Council on Foreign Relations defines it similarly:
there exists a Western liberal international order whose distinctive values, norms, laws, and institutions were designed to inform and govern state conduct. This order originated in Europe but achieved full expression only with the U.S. rise to global leadership (or hegemony), as the post-1945 United States combined power and purpose to forge a multilateral world order, using a mixture of persuasion, incentives, and coercion to do so.
It may be worth noting that as described, this was a western system. It included the United States and Europe and excluded the Soviet Union and China.What US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seems to be saying is that he wants China to join the US/European system. Part of the problem may be that what China wants is a system that they get to help build. Another part of the problem is that with the demise of the Soviet Union, the west is less willing to accept states that are not democracies in the western sense. China, as one of those states, would prefer to be accepted as they are. They are unwilling to change.So CFR says, in effect, that the US established this order by saying: You’ll follow our rules or we’ll make you follow our rules—unless you have more nukes than we do. Something like that. And now, when not everyone is totally happy with that state of affairs, Mark Milley complains that two nations with lots of nukes “intend to fundamentally change the rules-based current global order. Two questions immediately come to mind with regard to Milley’s complaint: 1) Is part of the rules-based order acceptance of King Dollar as the world’s reserve currency (a status Russia and China are undermining by setting up their own system), and 2) in a rules based order is it OK to nuke nations that want to opt out of some of those rules? International law, as I understand it, would seem to frown on that type of behavior.
Here’s another description of what the “rules-based current global order” is. It comes from an Australian source. Marise Payne is or was Foreign Minister. Note that there is no nonsense about international law—it’s all about “values” and “norms”, as defined by, well, us. The contrast with the TOC re international law, above, should be stark:
Multiple meanings
But what does “rules-based order” mean?
The unsatisfying answer is that the concept is used in official discourse to mean many different things, and they’re not always complementary. ...Other recurring propositions are that the rules-based order has both constrained the use of power and depends on US power; that it could shape China’s rise and be shaped by China; and that it must be saved and must change.
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But Payne also missed an opportunity to be more precise about the focus of Australian efforts. Her list of “three fundamental parts of the multilateral system” that Australia will focus on preserving was so sweeping that nothing much was left out. She cited:
the rules that protect sovereignty, preserve peace and curb excessive use of power, and enable international trade and investment;
the international standards related to health and pandemics, to transport, telecommunications and other issues that underpin the global economy, and which will be vital to a post-Covid-19 economic recovery;
and thirdly, the norms that underpin universal human rights, gender equality and the rule of law.
See any potential problems there? Yeah, me too—you could drive a truck through the doors that those “fundamental parts” open up. Rules based order depends on US power? Well, that’s been the reality since The End of History, but history has started up again with the advent of hypersonic missiles—what’s next? Rules to protect sovereignty and preserve peace? The US idea of protecting sovereignty and preserving peace runs something like, We get to station nukes anywhere we damn well please, and everyone else has to like it. Russia, on the other hand, is eager to talk about what they see as threats to their sovereignty with regard to the US staging coups in Ukraine, etc. Russia wants to talk about that in terms of international law (Law of War), but the rules based order refuses to listen—blocking Russia from raising such topics at the UN and making it largely impossible to access official statements put out by Russia if rules based media don’t think such knowledge is good for you. Rules for Russia turn out to be different than rules for us. If you’d like to explore some of those issues in the specific context of the Russia - Ukraine conflict, here’s an interesting article, written by a former colonel on the Swiss General Staff, a specialist in intelligence as related to Eastern countries. Don’t be deceived by the title, it’s not a SitRep:
It certainly seems that our idea of a rules based order is heads we win, tails you lose—it’s about maintaining our status as world hegemon. And you’d better be happy about it. And this is fundamental to Russia’s complaints about US bad behavior—the US plays fast and loose with international law, substituting our own rules as we go. The US justification appears to be, Well, we’re the good guys and abiding by international law would slow us down from doing all the good things you see us doing all around the world. Pardon us while we move our nukes on to your front porch.
Here’s another disturbing aspect of all this—it seems so patently insincere. Others see it and our Rulers are increasingly open about it: Governance, statecraft, is built on lies. We, our government, lies for our good and the good of all the other peons around the world—and we call that a rules based order. We saw that with the rules upon rules based Covid Regime. And now we see it with regard to our proxy war with Russia (and do check out the link above)—we seem proud of our lies:
U.S. 'Intelligence' Says Its 'Intelligence' Is Bullshit
U.S. 'intelligence' folks tell their stenographers at NBC News that their obvious lies are obvious lies.
That announced 'break with the past' of faking 'intelligence' happened when?
How 'rock solid' was the 'intelligence' about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction or chemical weapons attacks in Douma, Syria?
U.S. 'intelligence', then and now, is pure imagination for the purpose of deceiving the U.S. and 'western' public about the reality of this or that conflict:
Finally, since I raised the question of whether the rules based order includes King Dollar as world reserve currency, here’s a link to Tom Luongo’s latest. I’ll be honest—I understood very little of the technical details:
SOFR v. LIBOR: Have We Been Missing Something About the Fed’s Upcoming “Policy Error?”
The “Policy Error” refers to the anticipated substantial interest rate hikes. Here’s the part that I kinda understood. Luongo is maintaining, once again, that Jay Powell’s Fed is basically at war with Davos and is seeking to reassert US control over its currency:
The Fed is now firmly committed publicly to a very aggressive rate hike cycle in 2022 and possibly into 2023. It started with the now erstwhile hawks on the FOMC who all got pushed out during last year’s ‘insider trading’ scandal.
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All last year I kept telling you that there was a major internal battle happening for control over the Fed in order to stop the ‘policy error’ of raising rates into a supply-constrained cost-push inflation cycle.
I won’t rehash all the twists and turns of this story today because the fact that we are here with Powell as Chair pro-tem, still awaiting a proper confirmation hearing is the one thing you need to know that proves that correct. The Democrats continue pushing outright communists onto the FOMC board like Sarah Bloom-Raskin to replace the scalps taken last fall to forestall Powell’s actual confirmation.
Powell absolutely wants to make Monetary Policy American Again, after fifty years of Eurodollar markets setting monetary policy for them. As Jeff Snider so painstakingly has proven to us, the Eurodollar system is more powerful than the Fed in creating dollars and pricing the risk of those new dollars.
With a sympatico Congress that never met a spending bill it couldn’t compromise it’s way to betraying the American people with, for decades we’ve seen nothing but rearguard actions by the Fed when it tried to normalize interest rates.
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So, while I’ve been arguing for a while that the Fed has been in tightening mode for months, the thing that eluded me was how were they going to pull that off without a repeat of past performances?
The underlying assumption for this is that the Fed, as an advocate for U.S. commercial banking interests, is engineering a split with the Eurodollar system which has now reached the end of its ‘use-by’ date, given the dire fiscal circumstances the U.S. finds itself in.
Moreover, I’m further postulating, and I think with good reason, that the Biden Administration and most of the leaders in Congress do not work for American interests, but the opposite. It is the only realistic explanation for their behavior, especially since the beginning of Russia’s war with Ukraine.
So if Biden et.al. works for Davos and Davos wants an end to U.S. commercial banking dominance, then it makes sense they would need control over the Fed to pull off their move to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and create the apotheosis of the Great Reset.
Under those conditions the Fed would absolutely act ‘out of character,’ leaning into the ‘policy mistake’ of raising rates into a stagflationary environment with US debt to GDP at 109%.
Luongo’s contention is that the defeat of Build Back Better has freed the Fed’s hands to raise rates. You tell me.
For a differently focused but very worthwhile take:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/07/there-is-something-very-troublesome-about-the-western-govt-post-covid-rules-based-order/
Rule-based order is a replacement for archaic, inflexible national schemes such as republics and constitutions. The move to treaties such as the TPP overrides law without having to amend the constitutions, courts and legislative bodies.