Dr Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the International Bar Association (IBA), has written an opinion piece for law publication JURIST news titled Abandoning Ukraine Could Spell the Surrender of International Law. In the article he states the rules-based international legal order could suffer a devastating, and perhaps irreversible, blow if the United States and ally countries stopped supporting Ukraine during Russia’s invasion. 

Dr Ellis wrote: ‘[W]e are witnessing one of the most egregious violations of international law in modern history: the use of force against the territorial integrity of another state [..] Russia’s success would encourage a growing cohort of aligned nations to abandon multilateralism in favor of unilateral or regional power structures. Military tensions would rise, conflicts would proliferate, and the new Cold War we find ourselves in would only grow colder.’

Dr Ellis further reminds that this year marks the 80th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter, which he refers to as ‘one of the most significant milestones in modern history’. He points out that Russia’s war against Ukraine contradicts what the Charter symbolises, ‘the hopethat a united global community could ensure peace and security and protect the legal principles that underpin those ideals.’

Click here to read the full article on the JURIST news website.