Back to the Legal Middle Ages?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Russia initiated the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union and the shaping the all-encompassing Greater Eurasian Partnership. For these geopolitical projects to successfully move forward, Russia must place its bets on using the toolkit of international law, while encouraging the development of regional and transregional integrational law and the systemwide modernization of its own domestic legal system. Accordingly, it is in Russia’s interests to preserve a vitally important quality of its legal system—openness to international and supranational law—as well as to strengthen and defend international law and refute all accusations that international law is ineffective or has even already collapsed. All theoretical constructs and statements about how international law is at the brink of a profound crisis contradict objective truth and common sense. They were only needed in order to untie various actors’ hands in international affairs. In actuality, adherence to international law is as necessary as ever. Without it, decent international cooperation cannot be restored, peaceful coexistence and solutions to global problems cannot be provided, and development for all cannot be achieved. It is vital to understand that it is in fact international law and supranational law that are the genuine law, while national law, on the contrary, often merely legitimizes lawlessness and barbarity. Prominent Russian legal scholars were writing about this at length and with authority in the early 20th century. Furthermore, today international law is only one part of the global regulatory system.