By Frixos Vryonidis*
When Israel and the United States struck Iran last summer and claimed to have destroyed the country’s nuclear facilities, President Trump gleefully announced that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and utterly destroyed” («completely and totally obliterated»). A few months later, while negotiations were underway with Iran in Oman, the US and Israel launched a new attack against it. This time with much more intensity, organization and extent.
We are already on the thirteenth day of the conflict. And everything shows that military operations are expanding geographically and temporally, without anyone being able to predict how far this escalation will go and what consequences it may have, from regional security to the global economy and energy markets.
At a first level, one might reasonably ask: why? What is the cause of the new attack and how is it justified, if indeed the previous statement of the summer reflected the reality? Did Iran rebuild a new nuclear program from scratch in a matter of months? The answer is obviously no. And the answer to “why” remains as uncertain today as it was thirteen days ago.
Iran’s theocratic regime is an authoritarian and oppressive system of power that violates fundamental rights and stifles any form of political freedom. But this does not change the main issue at hand: the legality of military aggression and the use of force.
From a legal point of view, the context is clear. The United Nations Charter prohibits the use of force between states, with the only key exception being the exercise of self-defense in the event of armed attack, under Article 51. In this case, there was no such attack by Iran against the US or Israel. According to the relevant theory of international law, legal defense can exceptionally have a preventive character. But it presupposes at least the existence of an immediately imminent and overwhelming threat, to the extent that there is no other time or means of deterrence. In this case, however, the United States and Iran were in the process of negotiations – hardly consistent with the image of an immediate and imminent threat justifying the use of force. Under these circumstances, this military attack constitutes a violation of international law.
Can we afford to “write out” international law?
Especially from the perspective of a country like Cyprus, which for half a century has invoked international law to highlight the illegal invasion it suffered in 1974. It is – if nothing else – inconsistent to avoid the essence of the issue and approach such issues with the familiar “yes, but”. Because when we tacitly accept violations of international law elsewhere, we weaken the very argument on which our position on Cyprus rests.
But even if we put aside the Cyprus problem, the issue deserves to be seen through the eyes of every citizen of this world. States and societies built with effort, sacrifice and blood the system of rules that we now call international law. Precisely to limit the enforcement of the “right of the strong”.
We are fully aware that these rules are imperfect and that there are often insufficient means to enforce them. But let’s be clear: they are a necessary condition for a fundamentally stable and secure world.
This is precisely why the debate on the rules of international law is neither theoretical nor academic. It is directly related to how the international order is organized and whether smaller states can feel safe within it.
In this context, if there is a real hope today, it lies in the European Union and the prospect of developing into a truly autonomous union, with a single voice in foreign policy and security. For small states – and for the citizens of this world – international law is not a luxury. It is the only real alternative to the law of the strong. And if we want a world of rules and not a world of power, then Europe must find its own voice and the courage to use it.
*Lawyer – Candidate Member of Parliament of Nicosia with the VOLT