Ukraine Crisis: A turning point for defence of the “rules-based” order?*

Vladimir Putin’s devastating offensive against the people of Ukraine and his full out assault on international law and order deepen; and human rights violations, war crimes and a humanitarian crisis mount.

At a pace rarely witnessed, the world is responding. That includes massive financial sanctions, banking penalties, abandoned contracts, military assistance, travel restrictions, closed air space, international criminal investigations, an emergency UN General Assembly session, and bans on Russian participation in major sporting events. There have been daily announcements at the highest levels of the Canadian government, involving the Prime Minister and numerous ministers.

There is an unprecedented feel to what is unfolding.

But sadly, examples abound of states invading another state or attacking their own people, in blatant disregard of binding international obligations, and utter contempt for the essential precepts of the United Nations.

Certainly, that Russia has brazenly done this as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council, wielding the hegemonic veto power it enjoys alongside the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom, makes this particularly galling. But even there, the list of those states using or threatening to use the veto against meaningful action in response to a crisis that is directly or in part their own doing, is disgracefully long.

The United States has vetoed more than fifty Security Council resolutions over the last fifty years dealing with Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Russia and China have done so more than 15 times over the past decade in the face of the crisis in Syria. Other times it was so obvious a veto would be used, that a resolution was not even tabled.

Those vetoes were wielded in the face of unimaginable levels of civilian suffering, by states bearing significant responsibility for the harms inflicted.

What Putin is doing in Ukraine is despicably illegal. He is cavalierly breaching the foundational agreements for international peace and security, including the UN Charter, Geneva Conventions, and numerous human rights treaties.  Every possible sanction must be pursued to bring it to an end, with as much multilateral unity as can be mustered.

But it is not only Putin’s Russia that stands condemned.  It is the hypocritical dysfunction of our supposed rules-based order more widely that we must indict, and transform. 

Severe repression within Russia, and war crimes by Russian forces in other countries, are nothing new. Yet, the UN Human Rights Council, established in 2006, has never taken up Russia’s egregious human rights record. It takes no international affairs expert to connect the dots through years of Russia’s easy ride for human rights violations, through to troops spilling into Ukraine.

That the invasion of Ukraine is rooted in contempt for international law may not be unprecedented. What may be, though, is the response.

Economic punishment that seemed highly unlikely one week ago, including expelling Russian banks from the SWIFT financial system, Switzerland abandoning its banking neutrality, and Germany’s decision to halt certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, are piling up.

The first emergency session of the UN General Assembly in forty years has overwhelmingly condemned the invasion.

A dizzying list of sporting bodies, infamous for refusing to get involved in “politics”, are cutting ties with Russian sporting federations, teams and athletes.

With as many as four million Ukrainians set to flee, the borders of neighbouring countries remain open to refugees. Those same countries, notably Poland and Hungary, have been brutally harsh and racist in turning away refugees from other parts of the world.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has quickly commenced an investigation.

And China actually abstained in the vetoed Security Council vote calling for Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, rather than rallying to Russia’s side.

The list goes on. And more is needed.

That this is the world’s response to Ukraine should not be unprecedented. It should be the norm.

This must become that turning point.  Not only a moment of rallying against Russian aggression and human rights cruelty.  But rather, a moment when the world unites and rallies against all aggression and human rights violations; and does so with real pressure and concrete action.

As the Ukraine crisis spirals, the UN Human Rights Council is in session.  There is much condemnation of Russia in the air; rightfully so. Whether that leads to meaningful outcomes remains to be seen.

But here’s the rub. Will states go further and find universal human rights resolve to call out all countries deserving of condemnation and advance reform agendas wherever needed? Or will politics, timidity and hypocrisy prevail?

Let us dare to dream. That is what we owe to the people of Ukraine, and to all peoples.

* Originally published as an opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen on March 3, 2022.