Neutrality Studies. Weekly Recap #3
July 21-27
Hola!
I’m happy to send you the third weekly recap of the Neutrality Studies YouTube Channel, where I summarise the videos so can see if there’s anything interesting you might have missed. And let’s start with a little teaser about the highlight of my week. Have a quick listen to John Pang and Naoko Kumada. More about them below. But click the video, it’s just 30 seconds long…
What is a Hegemon? And Why?
Actually, my week began with another great talk, and an absolute pearl: a discussion with the wonderful Michael Brenner, an emeritus professor for international affairs at Pittsburgh University. Michael is a great master of concepts in IR and in this talk elaborated on an essay that he recently wrote and that I also published on my homepage “Hegemony or Bust,” in which he argues that
“Hegemony is the dominance over places, political elites, institutions so as to control what a state does in its own interest. That dominance can vary in scope, in its methods of control, in its degrees of control. The much discussed American hegemony after WW II was geographically delimited by the Communist bloc outside its ambit. After 1991, it took on a putative global dimension with the aspirational goal to solidify the United States’ primacy and dominion. It remains so today.”
You can read the full text here. Oh, and Michael was also kind enough to attach a copy of that Wolfowitz Doctrine—should you have never seen it before, it’s worth a read to get completely into the head of these Neocon crazies.
The Next Legal Blow for Isreal
Then I did a short analysis of what the recent ICJ advisory opinion entitled “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” means for the future of the global struggle to hold Isreal legally accountable for its crimes. My main arguments are the following:
You see, International Law is not like domestic law. It’s not enforceable the way that domestic law is. It also doesn’t come about the same way as domestic law. Domestic law is made (usually) by legislative bodies, (usually) called parliaments. They are more or less concrete rules which are then used by the state machine to structure social live inside a country.
International Law doesn’t work like that, because there is no world parliament with the same force over everyone. The UN General Assembly might look a bit like a parliament but it really isn’t the same kind of institution. International Law represents first and foremost the “general collective will” of the international community as expressed through treaties, declarations, custom, and—expert opinions.
So what this verdict signifies is another instant of “the world” not recognising Israel’s claims over Palestinian lands. Of course Israel is angry now and says, literally, “The people of Israel are not occupiers in their own land and in their eternal capital, Jerusalem” — this is actually a quite useful statement, because exactly this is the core of the issue. The verdict means that the world does not recognise precisely this claim, namely that Israel, by virtue of Jews having lived in these lands 2000 years ago, derives some magical historical rights over the land. This is not a concept of international law and won’t be one. And Isreal is furious about not being able to impose its will here.
Because, you know, this is a very big problem Zionism since Isreal’s entire political strategy is to just create facts on the ground. Isreal’s idea ever since its establishment in 1948 has been to just ignore international law, do things that are clearly considered crimes under that law, just take the land, replace the people who are living there, and, over time, let that become a fact of international live. (…).
Jeff Rich on NATO and More
Next up was an interview with my colleague in the Multipolar Peace Alliance, Jeff Rich. We talked about his work, how he views history and the work of historians, and we talked about how historical narratives shape policy preferences of the present. That’s why we gotta be so careful about how we view the past.
Trump and Peace?
And right after Jeff, I talked to a conservative colleague from the US, David Pyne. David was on my show a few times before and I appreciate his inputs because there are several things we actually do not agree on. David belongs to the conservative camp in the US and was also at the Republican National Convention. He argues that Donald Trump and his new VP running mate, J.D. Vance are the best chance for peace in Ukraine and probably also for an ‘amicable divorce’ with China that would not result in WWIII. Again, I don’t see everything like David, but I appreciate the input on how conservatives view the role of Trump over the next months (and maybe years).
ASEAN, Japan, and so much more
So, this was the highlight of my week, and the context for the above snippet: a wonderful talk with another two colleagues from the Multipolar Peace Alliance, John Pang and his wife Naoko Kumada. The two are just fantastic. Great analysts, outspoken, and deeply knowledgable about the political and social situations in Southeast Asia. John is himself from Malaysia, while Naoko is from Japan and a great expert on Myanmar. We talked so much, I had to cut the video into two parts. We talked a lot about the future of East and Southeast Asia.
Lavrov on Multipolarity
Last but not least, I looked through the press conference that Sergei Lavrov gave on July 16 and decided to make a video about his conception of how the multipolar world is working. The following I found most interesting:
Content
Process over Gaols: Lavorv, like Putin, views multipolarity as a process not with a concrete goal but with a general direction.
Include the US in the future: They do not actually want to exclude the US from the future global system.
US behaviour is driving the process: They are fairly confident that the behaviour of the US is actually going to further support the creation of a multipolar order. Russia and China are helping to build what’s next, they are not actually driving the process.
The un-equal nature of the current system: What the Collective West calls the “Rules Based International Order” is what motivates other states to collaborate with Russia toward a system that is more equal. This ties in perfectly with the analysis of Ambassador Chas Freeman, who wittily remarked that the RBIO is an instance of “Rule by Law” instead of the principle of “Rule of Law”, represented by actual international law.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!
Cheers,
Pascal