My Take | The emerging axis of lawlessness – the European Union, United States and Israel
From Ukraine to the Caribbean and Middle East, we are witnessing the application of the law of the jungle by the West and its ally
It’s not for nothing that John Locke famously wrote that “life, liberty and property” are inalienable rights. The West, after all, has taught the world that property ownership, legally obtained, is sacrosanct. But what the West has imposed, it can also break. That is the real meaning of the rules-based international order, as opposed to international law: do what I say, not as I do.
So the hardline European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been pressuring member states to support the seizure of more than €190 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets – currently held in Belgium – to fund her proxy war in Ukraine. That’s because the European Union is running out of resources and the United States has refused to provide more support. The EU has just moved to freeze the Russian assets indefinitely as a precursor to full seizure.
Though any such move by the EU would be illegal, von der Leyen’s even more hardline foreign minister Kaja Kallas, has reportedly dismissed the legal concerns and consequences in a private meeting with a group of EU lawmakers, according to numerous reports. “Which court was Russia going to go to? Which judge would ever rule for Russia on this?” she reportedly claimed.
Well, in October, South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of a Moscow Arbitration Court judgment ordering Google International to repay 10 billion roubles (HK$972 million) in a bankruptcy case. It authorised the seizure of the company’s South African assets to comply with the Russian court order.
Most independent legal experts have observed the EU proposal, if carried out, would violate international law. They have pointed to the Belgium-Luxembourg-Russia Investment Treaty of 1989, which protects the assets of investors and states against expropriation and uncompensated seizure.
They also point to the 1958 New York Convention, an international treaty adopted by a United Nations conference, to facilitate international arbitration by ensuring that foreign arbitral awards are recognised and enforceable between contracting states. Russia has just launched a lawsuit in the Moscow Arbitration Court against Euroclear, the Brussels-based financial settling and clearing house where most of the assets in question are deposited.