The Cornerstones of the Post-World War II and the Contemporary International Law: the View from Moscow and Beijing

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The starting point for a lot of legal and political science publications concerning global issues appeared lately in the USA and countries of the EU is that China and Russia are renegade powers trying to undermine existing postmodern world economic and political order. Some authors in other regions, even in Russia, follow such an erroneous approach. In real life the situation is entirely different. The world order that emerged after the end of World War II was created with China and Russia participation. They made a major contribution to its establishment. It suits their interests. The main pillars of this world order are sovereign equality of states, noninterference in their internal matters, international cooperation and the prohibition to use force. After the dissolution of the USSR so called western democratic nations made their best to change that and acquire the legal right to use different types of force unilaterally and to interfere in internal life of other states on different grounds, proclaiming that postmodern developments changed the essence of the notion of sovereignty. They pretend that they succeeded to do this and persuade others. It is not true. They failed. Russia and China managed to preserve the core values of the post-World War II order. They stick to modern international law and are its most important protectors and promoters. All their recent global political, nonproliferation and economic initiatives are the prove of it.