If power had to obey norms, it would not have to justify its violation. Felipe Hasson — a prestigious Brazilian international lawyer — has shared his opinion on the US intervention in Venezuela, which coincides with what has been expressed so far. In this sense, international policy operates without a supranational government that can impose norms with coercitive authority.
ANARCHY, ORDER AND HEGEMONY IN ARON
Aron holds three theses that fit exactly with what I recall from my student years:
«The international system is anarchic by nature». - There is no legitimate monopoly on the use of force -. «This anarchy does not necessarily mean chaos, but it is only contained by the balance and action of the great powers». «When the dominant powers abdicate their role, the system tends to: Proliferation of conflicts, Peripheral wars, Ideological radicalization, Loss of tacit rules». This is what we have observed in the democratic governments of Carter (1977/1981), Clinton (1993/2001), Obama (2009/2017) and Biden (2021/2024).
Here the idea we recalled above is perfectly understood: «Woe to the day when there is no power that orders...». This is not a quote, but a very Aronian synthesis. His position is more sober and tragic:
He does not assert that hegemony is good, He asserts that the absence of an ordering power is worse, andThe international order is always precarious, imperfect, and dangerous. «That power is the one that won the last world war».
Aron explicitly dealt with the «anarchic» character of the international system in the classical sense of International Relations. It was born and developed as «customary», based on the reiterated practice by States and on the «Opinio iuris sive necessitatis» — opinion of law or of necessity, or the conviction of legal obligatoriness —. Even today, the structural principles of the international system — sovereignty, formal equality of States, non-intervention, immunities, etc. — are of customary origin, even when they were later codified. Hence his famous attitude: realism without cynicism.
In summary, Aron speaks of «imperial republics». He assigns them a structural role of responsibility in the international order. And the USSR — not only obtain power, but inherit a structural responsibility: maintain the balance, prevent the return of a general war, manage international anarchy. This is clearly seen when Aron analyzes:
The UN Security Council, The right of veto, The institutionalization of the power of the victors.
For Aron, the unregulated international order is only tolerable if there is an «order of powers». A responsibility without moralism.
International law does not exist to shield authoritarian regimes. Consequently, it is power that generates the norm and not the norm that originates or governs power.
«UTOPIA IGNORES POWER; REALISM IGNORES EVERYTHING, EXCEPT POWER»
Edward H. Carr (1892–1982)
QUOTES AND CLARIFICATIONS:
(1). «Evasion by law»: The absence of solid political and moral foundations led the globalist progressive sector to shift the debate to a strictly formal plane, using law as a mechanism to evade substantive analysis.
(2) With meridian clarity, the international lawyer tells us: «Invoking international law to defend dictators is a perversity of the intellect. Therefore, the reasoning of those who place ideology above all — and then search in international law for phrases, concepts, and principles that serve the answer they have already decided to give — is, at a minimum, deplorable. It is not a serious defense of international legality, but an exercise in selective cynicism, done from a distance and without any empathy for those who experience the collapse firsthand».
When ideology comes before human beings and sovereignty is invoked to justify misery, law ceases to be an instrument of justice and becomes merely empty rhetoric at the service of indifference».
In conclusion: Public International Law is predominantly customary and lacks a superior sovereign power. It does so in normative or idealistic terms and warns that the withdrawal or abdication of these powers leads to disorder.
George F. Kennan (1904/2005) — famous US diplomat.
THE GLOBALIST PROGRESSIVE SECTOR AND ITS «EVASION BY LAW»
(1).
In recent days, following the «surgical extraction» operation of the «occupier» from the Miraflores Palace — in Caracas, on Jan 3, 26 — the impossibility for the «international and own globalist progressive sector» — of left and right — to find a single valid argument to defend the narco-terrorist revolutionary dictator, they discovered — almost unanimously — the old path of «evasion by law» (1).
The «globalist progressive sector» shielded themselves — and continue to do so — in legal formalisms to avoid the substance of the matter, since the charges against the dictator Maduro are absolutely true and proven.
Once a norm is established:
The political cost of violating it is raised,Greater predictability is offered,It serves as a common language, even for the powerful.
For all these reasons, the great powers violate international law, but rarely deny it; they seek ex post legal justifications and use law as a political weapon.
«THE STRONG DO WHAT THEY CAN AND THE WEAK SUFFER WHAT THEY MUST»
Thucydides (460/395 BC)
This is a «tailor-made» message for our illustrious «prog/globalists» — intellectuals, politicians, and journalists — who have done so much damage to the Argentine Nation in recent decades.
In my memory I register an idea from the lucid French politicalologist, something like: «Woe to the day when there is no power that orders the unregulated international system».
And our answer is: No, it does not govern it originally, since International Law does not arise as a limit to power, but as:
An instrument of stabilization,A language of legitimization,A mechanism of predictability among powers.
However, it can be channeled and disciplined.
In these phrases, the central principles of «realism» in International Politics are expressed:
Primacy of the national interest,Centralization of power and force,Anarchic international system,Structural distrust among States,Limits of morality and law, without the power that supports them.
We know that our expression «evasion by law» is not strictly juridical, but in political and colloquial terms it translates very clearly what we propose to convey to our readers. It is to transform a system created to protect human beings into an argument of convenience to protect the oppressors. There is nothing progressive about it.
KEY QUOTES
«If power needed to obey norms, it wouldn't have to justify its violation». Felipe Hasson.
«The international order is not based on justice, but on balance». Henry Kissinger.
«Utopia ignores power; realism ignores everything, except power». Edward H. Carr.
«The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must». Thucydides.
«Woe to the day when there is no power that orders...». (Paradoxically attributed to Raymond Aron).
