International Relations 2.0

Banner: Ramallah Martyr’s Memorial Mural. Jan. 2025. Photo Zarni

Mireille Fanon Mendes France
Frantz Fanon Foundation

Since January 2025, we have definitively entered into a world where the law of the strongest prevails, where this law is accepted in international relations, and where those who reject it become the enemies of those who draw the contours of the axis of good: law and order  based on institutional racism, exclusion of workers, redefinition of international relations, and the blurring at the state level of private and public interests.

With the reality of a single dominant and hegemonic power on the international stage, the North American power, combined with the existence of a single and unique possible international social model, the most established notions of international law are undergoing a profound crisis, ranging from the erosion of the prohibition on the use of armed force, which is already under attack, to the notion of “preventive war,” which deals a severe blow to international law, indirectly dismantling the entire system of collective security, revisiting the notion of self-defense. It is the very nature of the entire system of collective security, the system of international cooperation, and the international order in general that is at stake. With their hegemonic and dominant position on the politico-ideological and military fronts, the United States is showing an increasing tendency towards unilateralism outside the framework of the United Nations, stemming from the preeminence of economic interests associated with the technological superiority they enjoy today. Indeed, we have been witnessing, for some time now, the dismantling of general international law and law based on the Charter, a law that is essentially political. This law is subject to neutralization by the United States and their allies, particularly regarding international cooperation, the peaceful settlement of disputes, peace, or if you prefer, the right to peace. It can be asserted that the United Nations have long shown their allegiance to the proponents of liberal globalization who are waging an offensive against the State as a regulatory agent of social relations. So, the State, as an institution, and by extension the public authorities, find themselves in the midst of a profound existential crisis of legitimacy. The war waged by the current President of the United States against state agencies to eliminate numerous programs opens the door to private interests and puts the state and public authorities in the background.

It seems that the President of the United States has indeed taken to heart what the World Bank said in one of its reports: “…private initiative is paralyzed by the persistence of antagonistic relations between the State and the market (…) privatization is an obvious solution” and must remain a priority.” (The State in a Changing World, World Bank Report, 1997; See also, Good Governance: The IMF Role, IMF, Washington D.C., 2003). This has not changed; on the contrary, the attacks against the State and public authorities have never ceased and have even increased. The objective is to delegitimize the State, but this is not new; the UN, through its Secretary-General, did not hesitate to emphasize that public authorities must pursue dynamic and favorable economic policies to the private sector (In Larger Freedom: Development, Security and Human Rights for All, Report of the Secretary-General, 24 March 2005 p 13) going so far as to assert that civil society and international institutions must join this ideal in the service of freedom through good governance.

If this President seems to no longer refer much to the fight against terrorism, except when it comes to migrants or certain countries, he dictates the framework of what he considers good governance, which involves the removal of regulations, technical obstacles, and tariff barriers that hinder the freedom of trade.

He aims to reduce the role of the State, never mind if this has consequences on the redistribution of wealth through fiscal policy, on employment, on consumption, on the control of monetary and financial flows, on public policies for economic and social development, on public services, common goods, public goods. One single objective: the development of the private sector.

For this president and for some other proponents of the world’s fascization, the State should not remain one of the main actors in international relations; in the face of the current crisis of legitimacy and erosion of competencies, he is not even interested in reformulating their roles; still and always, his interest lies in establishing a regulatory framework conducive to the development of the private sector.

To achieve this, it needs a state that is increasingly repressive and increasingly focused on charity, morality, or compassion, or even all three together (Final report presented by J. Oloka-Onyango and Deepika Udagama, Op. cit.). The State becomes a penal State and on the international level, the current option is to eliminate the development of humanitarian missions and emergency medical assistance in Palestine, in Africa, and in Latin America.

We must understand from what is happening in Gaza that this order of death and extreme violence is what awaits any country opposed to the imperial hegemonic order. The new order imposed has no other guide than financial profit for the benefit of a few and the satisfaction of the desires of the same; all others thus become enemies to be eliminated, just as in the dream of the Israeli state Gaza and then the West Bank must be eliminated.

The systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip is a new weapon of mass destruction that has been orchestrated by the criminal occupiers-settlers: starvation, privation of electricity and, soon, of water  maintained by those who decide what is allowed to enter inside this territory, hemmed in by the murderous clutches of a state claiming to block barbarism in the name of democracy. Which country will be the next? The Ukraine? Haiti? Perhaps not Haiti because Donald Trump has other plans it and has not said “soon Haiti will change because someone will buy it.” Like the cowboys of the far West, international relations are going to be limited to I will take what I need from somewhere else, with no regard to the relations between peoples or nations, and with no regard for peoples at all. North America is all that matters, the struggle for democracy against barbarism; whatever the price to pay in terms of dignity and fundamental rights, including the right to life. It took the pugnacity of the South African state to finally affix the appropriate term to this live massacre.

The white world has so inculcated in the collective mind of mankind, since the captive transatlantique trade slave, enslavement and colonization, that a black life is next to nothing, any more than an Arab or a Palestinian life. This crime is an integral part of the foundations of the capitalist system, and for that system to live on, this crime must remain in the subconscious, ignored, forgiven, assumed by the victims themselves and now by all the descendants of this history. The system of liberal domination will only concede them a space in memory, which will of course diminish according to the desires of the dominants and above all the balance of power in place.

It is therefore natural to conclude that, for these populations,  power relations prevail over the law, over political arrangment particularly when it comes to international law and international humanitarian law, which were set up to regulate power relations; And yet, in the colonial context that we have never left, these norms are confiscated, manipulated and instrumentalized by the dominant white powers, so as to be reduced to a set of paradoxically injunctive norms.

Who would have thought that Palestine would become the dividing line between the world of rejection of the other and the world of You as Fanon calls it (PN,MB, ?)? Who would have thought that the United States is now helping the Russian state to kill Ukrainians in order to force the Ukraine to accept a bad agreement that could mean the end of their country”, as Philipps Payson O’Brien of St Andrews University declares? How can the international community resolve to participate in the destruction of the right of peoples to self-determination and the sovereignty of states for the benefit of perverse and criminal arrangements that allow two million people to be expelled from Gaza from their ancestral lands and their part of Palestine becomes the Riviera, so that, on the one hand, the dream of a greater Middle East becomes reality and, on the other hand, this officially contributes to the installation of new borders between Russia and Ukraine so that in the long term the Russian state can live out its dream of reconstituting a greater Russia. In a few years, will we have to witness, when our states have participated, by refusing to assume their international responsibility and allowing the principles of the United Nations Charter to be violated, the birth, on Ukrainian territory, of a second Palestine? It is a safe bet that Ukraine will become the new Palestine on the doorstep of Europe.

What can be said about the complete silence regarding Haiti, which has been left to gangs, with a people standing firm against them, and an armed military force led by Kenya whose role is completely invisible? In a month, we must celebrate the 200th anniversary of this country that won its freedom against the European white slave masters and formed the first Black Republic. The Haitian resistance has inspired dreams just as the Palestinian resistance has, refusing to give up their land and their olive trees. What force of opposition are we? How to stand with the peoples in struggle refusing their annihilation? How to re-enchant the voice of freedom for emancipation? How to stay alive?

In the current state of power dynamics within international relations, a purely formalistic conception of democracy prevails, focused on the right to free and periodic elections. The liberal conception hides the fact that it is a purely formal democracy, reduced to its simplest expression: it is the vote of the citizens (an indispensable exercise, of course), and not a process. This conception also hides the fact that liberal democracy is synonymous with market freedom as the sole and unique model, which is pure ideology.

One of the major challenges is the need to democratize international relations in general, and economic international relations in particular. This implies the existence of an international society with a system of legal-political pluralism that involves the recognition of different social models, pluralistic democratic models, and diversified means in the pursuit of local, regional, and international development. In turn, the construction of a new international legal and institutional framework requires the creation of a new dynamic of forces.

Mireille Fanon Mendes France
Frantz Fanon Foundation