War is terrible, but there is a whole legal notion surrounding it. There are rules that apply. It is important to understand these rules to understand the decisions of the world’s leaders in connection with the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia are members of the United Nations. The Charter of the United Nations dictates in its article 2 that one cannot invade a country as one wishes without reason. For there to be a declaration of War, there must be a real threat. Despite Putin’s strategy of pretending a threat with the pro-Russian situation in Dombas in eastern Ukraine, legally it was not enough to invade Ukraine. This is an unlawful attack under public international law.
Countries, it must be known, are sovereign and independent. It is therefore difficult to compel them and to force them to respect the law as one could do with a citizen… We do not put a country or its leader in prison when it breaks international law. We must take other less coercive measures such as economic sanctions or, in the extreme, act militarily. This is what makes public international law and its application very complex.
It is a law which resembles old internal law which was in force in certain countries at the time. Law which was more archaic in the sense that there were provisions like the Law of Retaliation: Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. A kind of revenge that we no longer see in our legal systems now, but in public international law we still see it. There are provisions that are planned, as if a country attacks another, the country will be able to defend itself against the attack. So if we get attacked with normal missiles or machine guns, we can’t retaliate with a nuclear bomb. The replica must be proportional otherwise it is illegal.
The Geneva Conventions, despite the shock to the imagination and sensitivity, will govern the way to kill the enemy, to attack it while avoiding civilian casualties and the way to treat prisoners. If the governments in place do not apply these legal principles, the leaders can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court later, when they are no longer in power.
If we go back to the situation at the moment with Ukraine and Russia, what is also important to understand are all the rules related to NATO. A kind of select defense club. Insurance when you are a member. The North Atlantic Treaty which was put in place following the Second World War to protect the planet. There are 30 member countries such as France, England, the United States, Canada…several countries that form the alliance to protect themselves against attacks. You should know that Russia is not a member and neither is Ukraine.
Ukraine, which is now a democracy, has tried to join NATO in the past without success because there are countries like France and Germany which said that we did not want to isolate the Russians so that they don’t approach the Chinese. Whoever wants to join NATO too. There are political, military and social criteria to be respected and Ukraine until now did not meet these criteria.
This is why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky implores the international community to join NATO. On the other hand, it should have been done before. It’s a bit like with insurance. We cannot be insured when the disaster occurs. This is where the whole legal problem of the non-intervention of NATO members in Ukraine lies because of the non-application of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for Ukraine:
Section 5
“The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them occurring in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack directed against all parties, and accordingly they agree that, if such an attack produced, each of them, in the exercise of the right of self-defence, individual or collective, recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the party or parties thus attacked by immediately taking, individually and agreement with the other parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain security in the North Atlantic region.”
This article is very important since it states that if one of the member countries is attacked, the other countries must defend it, even militarily. It’s a bit like with the Musketeers: “One for all, all for one”. We must act.
As a result of this situation, one can clearly sense the strategy of President Putin, who entered Ukraine, a country he has claimed for a long time and whose democracy frightens him, before Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, knowing very although if Russia invades a member country of NATO, we are in a situation of world war where all the member countries including the other great power of the world, the United States, will mobilize militarily to defend this country.
This is why the international community will not act militarily in the conflict and why the Russians will not try to invade a NATO member country like Poland. The risk is too great for all countries, even for Russia which seems lawless.
If NATO intervened anyway, it would be an illegal way of interfering in a conflict between two sovereign countries and the danger of a third world war would be too great. You have to understand that with the force of nuclear weapons, there is not a country that wants a world war, even the Russians. It is easy to deduce that if Ukraine had been a member of NATO, the Russians would certainly not have attempted to invade the country.
Despite differing opinions, principles, pride, old grudges, a war remains the slippage of a dispute that has been badly managed. There is always a peaceful solution to settle a dispute by talking to each other. I hope that the human madness of war will quickly cease and that dialogue will triumph.