UKRAINE: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

The initial Hague Conference in 1899: the international community's first multilateral attempt to place limits on war 

As we reach the grim third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it feels like we've entered a parallel universe – one where the last 80 years didn't happen. At the very least, we seem to be in a world where an event that took place 80 years ago this year – one that reshaped the entire course of international politics – has been erased from the collective memory. The date I'm referring to is June 26, 1945, and the event was the signing of the United Nations Charter.

In the universe where this event did actually occur, on that day the so-called 'great powers' – and all the other nation states at the table (those that weren't there have mostly come on board since) – made a solemn commitment. Their commitment was not only to jointly and severally maintain international peace and security, but also to take all steps necessary to restore the peace in the case of a breach – including (and this was the crucial innovation) the use of force.

That commitment was built on one made earlier by the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor, which for the first time declared that war is a crime – rather than simply being 'a continuation of diplomacy by other means'. This was a hugely significant step – a paradigm shift, even. Until then, efforts to control war attempted through ad hoc channels, like the Hague Conferences, had been limited to setting rules of engagement. It took the horrors of the First World War to catalyse the idea that war itself was wrong – a crime committed not just against the victim state, but against humanity as a whole.

But that thought is conspicuous by its absence from discussions about the war in Ukraine. President Zelensky has been forthright in voicing his country's rights and the UN's obligations in this regard, but his words fall on deaf ears – it's as if the agreements we have collectively made no longer exist. Nor is it good enough to roll out the tired excuse of the Security Council veto: the Charter clearly specifies that a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting – and further, that where the Security Council fails to act, member states enjoy the "inherent right of individual or collective self-defence." We all could – and should – be defending Ukraine to the hilt, and pushing back decisively against an act of naked aggression.

This is the largest elephant in the room where the international community lives. There are others, to be sure: not least the Budapest Memorandum, an agreement made by the US, UK and Russia to assure the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine once they gave up the nuclear weapons that guaranteed their safety. They did, but we didn't: it's one of the shabbiest betrayals of trust in the history of modern diplomacy, and makes a mockery of the idea that any meaningful guarantees can be given for Ukraine’s security going forward. But as a dereliction of duty it's still dwarfed by the fact that the UN, the ultimate backstop against international aggression, is being sidelined.

It's particularly concerning that the United States seems to have turned its back on the 'rules-based order' that’s underpinned international relations since the UN was founded. First, because the US has always provided the driving force and military muscle required to keep the system going. Concerning, too, because as the largest economy in the world it will be hard for the rest of us to take effective measures against it. But concerning most of all because the world's greatest superpower is now going against the grain of human history – a history that has in large part been defined by struggles to tame the power of the strong to dominate the weak. Of all countries, America ought to know about that.

For it's no surprise that humanity should have eventually converged on the idea of collective defence against aggression. That's been the path to peace that nation states have all followed in their own internal struggles to eliminate violence. Once it's possible to allow disputes to be settled by law, not war, those who fail to respect the arrangements can be dealt with by a civil police force; the same should be true at the global level. From the perspective of evolutionary game theory, it's a stable and sustainable arrangement. What is surprising is how casually we appear to be abandoning it.

What’s even more surprising – and not just surprising: shameful, unconscionable and even illegal given that the UN Charter is a binding document – is that no one in the ‘international community’ seems to be willing to stand up for it.

Shame on us all.