World needs willing allies

We need countries to cooperate to counter the adverse impact of current US government actions

- NITIN DESAI

Eighty years ago, an international organisation, the United Nations, was set up and its agreed charter defined the legality of relations between States and established diplomatic practices that favoured restraint and mutual respect. This global standard of behaviour by countries was also reflected in the charters of several other international institutions. To a certain extent, this held true even during the first four and a half decades of its existence that were dominated by tension between the United States and the USSR. Over the past three decades, polycentrism has emerged with substantial rise in the global impact of China, particularly in trade. The incidence of inter-State wars has also declined to some extent.

In recent years, this world of balanced relations between nations and restraint in official wars has been diluted—and lately, even disappeared. Substantial interstate wars have surfaced in the Russia-Ukraine war, in the genocidal war waged by Israel in Gaza, and the attacks on Iran. Another older example is the attack on Iraq in 2003, led by the US, and supported by the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland, which, unlike the 1991 attack, was not authorised by the UN. Of course, over the past decades, wars without UN authorisation have taken place and justified on the grounds of self-defence, which is permissible under the UN Convention.