Unipolarism and international law

• Main Authors: Avramović Nenad M., Stanković Marko M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Serbian Culture Priština, Leposavić 2018-01-01
• Series: Baština
• Subjects: international law; sovereignty; unilateralism; international court of justice; nato; humanitarian intervention; kosovo; advisory opinion
• Online Access: https://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0353-9008/2018/0353-90081845201A.pdf

With the end of the Cold War, the world power of the great powers is emerging and the United States assumes the role of a world order hegemon. Existing international legal order, despite attempts to reform, does not follow the changes in contemporary international relations. Unilateral imposition of global solutions is often deteriorated by the complex system of formal legal decision making, and the bearers of the new world order are 'forced' to interpret international acts in accordance with their national interests. In order to achieve their geopolitical and economic interests, the instrumentalisation of international institutions and their organs is carried out. If ideological marketing opponents of the new world order do not believe the moral correctness of the decision of the globalists towards them, the means of economic coercion, sanctions, threats, and also the direct armed force are applied to them. Limited military interventions at the time of bipolarism are justified by ideological reasons, and today's liberal expansionist, which are most often carried out under the leadership of the NATO alliance led by the United States, 'the right to humanitarian intervention,' 'the care of human rights' and the 'responsibility for protection'. The significance of the basic principles prescribed by the Charter of the United Nations, such as sovereign equality, non-interference, territorial integrity, peaceful resolution of disputes and non-interference in internal matters, is relativized and disagreed, and 'promotion of democracy' and 'protection of human rights' puts it to the fore. The NATO military alliance's aggression against FR Yugoslavia in 1999 is an ancestral example of violating of all the basic principles of international law. The crisis in Kosovo was supposed to be presented in media and legal-political way through the vision of Euro-Atlantic states and in that way to ensure international legitimacy. The unilateral humanitarian armed intervention of the NATO alliance in FR Yugoslavia, without the consent of the Security Council, resulted in a violation of the territorial integrity and independence of the country, and the already inconsistent international legal order made it even more insecure. The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice was in line with the political position of unilateral hegemony and its satellites, not in the spirit of the fundamental principles of international law.