Is Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter Still Alive?

Abstract

The Russian aggression on 24 February 2022 on Ukraine has made many certainties that international lawyers believed in very uncertain. The aggression against Ukraine is a flagrant breach of international law. This was at least the second time that the Kremlin has violated international law in most recent times after its aggression against Crimea in 2014. This is a particularly alarming signal because normally the situation in Europe had remained – with the exception of the Balkans from 1991 until 2001 – peaceful – much as an exception to almost any other region of the world and particularly Africa and Southern America or the Middle and the Far East. What the Kremlin did not only in Europe but also in Africa and Asia as concerns Syria since 2008 is evidence of a rather new aggressive interpretation and attitude of international law. Twice in a very short times distance, 2014 and 2022, aggressions were directed against Ukraine. Moreover, the assertation from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine would not be an independent state and had no right to get away as an independent state, in other words the denial of its independence, makes things even more fundamental. It puts on the agenda of international law the question whether that what had been called to be the greatest achievement of international law since World War II, namely the abolition of the use of force in interstate relations, does still exist. Together with the flagrant hate against Ukraine’s nationalists or “Nazis” this ideology itself is close to behaviour which was known only in national socialist’s times, namely the “bringing back to the homeland” and the racist ideology.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Dr. h.c. Stephan Hobe, LLM, Jean-Monnet Chair for Public International Law, European Law and International Economic Law at the University of Cologne; Director Institute of Air Law, Space Law and Cyber Law and Managing Co-Director International Investment Law Centre Cologne.