Negative effect of Trump's lifting sanctions imposed on Russia is overrated

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Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The possibility of President Trump's decision to lift some sanctions that were imposed on Russia has created some concern in both media and expert community and has even sparked the arguments that such course of action may even affect the international law enforcement in the most negative way. While there is some truth to that, the situation is much more complicated when it comes to the real enforcement of international law on the global scale.

Indeed, when you are imposing sanctions on the state for violations of international law they should serve as an instrument of making that state comply with the rules and norms of international law. That much is true. However, it is rarely explained in the media, why U.S. have decided to impose sanctions on Russia unilaterally, albeit that it was then followed by some of its allies in Europe. The fact of the matter is that a lot of norms of the contemporary international law can be found in the Charter of the United Nations (UN), one of the grounding documents of the world order we live in right now.

All members of the UN are bound by the norms that are embedded into the Charter and agree to follow these norms on international level. The Charter have established a body of the UN called Security Council, that is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. This body consists of permanent and non-permanent members. The later are changing based on specific procedure, while the former remain members of the Security Council basically since the end of World War II. Conflict situations between states (such as for example between Russia and Ukraine) are falling under the jurisdiction of Security Council that has powers to impose sanctions based on the decisions of its members. This is a legitimate procedure on how international community makes decisions that the breach of one of the states of international law and its obligations under UN Charter should be treated with sanctions of economic, military or other character based on globally accepted norms of international law.

The question then arises, why haven't the U.S. chose that same path to legitimize the sanctions against Russia through the UN with the support of the international community? The simple fact is that decisions of the Security Council can be vetoed by any of its permanent members and one of such members is Russia. Which brings us to the point that U.S. was unable to try and uphold the international law through customary procedure legitimate to the international community.

U.S. then proceeds with the unilateral sanctions against Russia and nothing in international law forbids U.S. to do so. However, when U.S. acts unilaterally it means that it is a political decision of the government of the U.S., not of the international community. Moreover, the enforcement of any law (including international law) is effective and has desired effect only if it is applied to all the subjects of the law equally, without discrimination. Simply, the law should be equal to everybody. Hence, the importance of the collective decision on the matter that is represented by the procedures in the UN.

The sad fact is that the U.S. is not applying the same rules and actions to all the states in the world equally when it comes to the international law. The stark example is the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan by Armenia. This occupation have been reflected in the multiple international legal documents and even in the decision of international judicial body that works specifically with international law. Nonetheless, the U.S. have not recognized Armenia as an aggressor state and have not imposed any sanctions on the aggressor despite the fact that this situation is protracted since the early 1990's. On the other hand, U.S. has imposed sanctions against Russia with practically no international legal documents or decisions of international organizations to support them, while ignoring the same situation in Russia's neighborhood.

If U.S. can impose sanctions on the nuclear power and permanent member of UN Security Council it is obvious it can do so in regards to Armenia. Then, that brings us to the conclusion that the point of sanctions of the U.S. was not to uphold the international law and its principles, but to take steps on the international arena that would show discontent with its adversary. Thus, international law would not suffer from the partial or even total lift on the sanctions imposed on Russia, because it was not originally the point of the sanctions in the first place.

Quite frankly the sanctions have proven to be ineffective towards Russia anyway, as they have not changed the position or Russia towards the situation in Ukraine and have yet to show any other effect desired by U.S.

Kamal Makili-Aliyev
Doctor habilitatus of Laws
04.02.2016


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Jacksonians may want isolation, but risk leading U.S. to war

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Monday, February 06, 2017

Jacksonian school of thought is winning today in U.S. The starkest indicator of that is that the President of the U.S. is Donald Trump. As opposed to other three major schools (Wilsonian, Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian) Jacksonians are in the vanguard of American populism and promote isolationism in the global affairs of the U.S. The problem with that lies in the fact that after more than seven decades of U.S. foreign policy shaped by the Wilsonian and Hamiltonian schools of thought, sudden withdrawal to isolationism may bring the undesired result to Jacksonians -- war.

The policy of isolationism for Jacksonians comes from their belief that concentration on the national matters would better serve the American people, rather than expenditure of resources of U.S. to shape the "outside" and invest away from homeland. At the same time Jacksonians are skeptical of elites and federal government and prefer to keep federal interference in domestic affairs as little as possible. Jacksonians enjoy populism and react very strongly to anything they may see as a threat to national security. While not wanting to engage in wars or conflict situation abroad, Jacksonians would greet any perceived threat to the U.S. with readiness to defend their believes and their country. Recent events are very indicative of that. 

Donald Trump have recently assumed his office as the President of the U.S. and have pushed very fast to sign an executive order that have been nicknamed by the media as the "immigration ban". Trump's order was meant to be seen as his swift follow-up on his presidential campaign promise to strengthen borders and keep certain refugees from entering the U.S. This promise was based on the fear of Islamic terrorism trickling into the U.S. with refugees from Middle East running from war there. It appealed to the Jacksonians very well . Jacksonians have seen these refugees as the direct result of the strong engagement of the U.S. in the Middle East, that was (and is) deemed unnecessary by this school of thought. In their opinion the direct result of such engagement is a threat to the U.S. national security in form of influx of refugees that can bring with them terror directly to Jacksonian "homeland". The same popular vote that have brought Donald Trump to presidency is now also very strongly supporting this executive order of his. It is obvious that this support is Jacksonian-based. Populism, fear of national security, preference of isolation, rejection of the "foreign" -- practically all features are there. However, if such policies continue, this may play a very sad and nasty trick on Jacksonians.

Although, President Trump have issued an executive order that halted some groups of refugees and travel for some Muslim-majority countries, the implementation of the order have been very poorly planned and executed. Even "green card" holders have been affected by the order. These are the people, who have built lives quite legally in the U.S. and have participated (and mostly integrated) in both economy and society. In addition to the protests in the U.S. sparked by the problems that have been created by the order, Middle Eastern countries that were affected are deciding or implementing counter-measures.

On one hand President Trump has made a clear statement that he is dedicated to fighting Islamic terrorism, however on the other hand the situation created by his executive order helps in shaping the negative image of the U.S. in the Middle East, making affairs for terrorist organizations much easier in terms of (for example) recruitment. Many narratives of terrorist organizations are based on the negative image of the U.S. being hostile towards Middle East as a whole and generally towards Muslims. By supporting this negative image with the clumsy executive order, Trump's administration may do more damage to the Jacksonian ideals than actually help upholding them. The negative sentiment towards the U.S. in the Middle East will bring more hatred, more recruits to the terrorist groups, more reluctant allies in the fight against terrorism and thus more concentrated front against the U.S. 

Travel restrictions have never been proven as an effective counter-measure against terrorist activity. Today the perpetrator of the act of terrorism can be radicalized through the social media while being already in the country where the attack would be carried out and living there for some time. However, presenting yourself as an opponent of Muslim populations in the Middle East through your direct actions (such as "immigration ban") on the height of struggle against ISIS and similar groups, may lead only towards negative results in the long term. Despite the fact that in the short term such populist measure can ensure you 49% of Jacksonian support.

The direct result of this as with any such "ban" can be that the people who want to "trickle terror" into the U.S. will redouble their efforts, emboldened by newly acquired narratives such as, for example, that the "U.S. is against all Muslims". As more such policies and decisions come, the amount of efforts will pile up and in the end the U.S. will find itself truly besieged by the attempts to import terrorism to its territory, while simultaneously trying to fight radicalization online to prevent homegrown terror cells. Thus, the Jacksonians have a real risk of meeting "war on terror" much closer than they would like to, as a direct result of the actions they now support.

Kamal Makili-Aliyev
Doctor habilitatus of Laws
04.02.2016

        Modern Diplomacy

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