27 May 2020 18:18

Russian Senator Kosachyov: there's need for new int'l law binding for all

MOSCOW. May 27 (Interfax) - Chairman of the Russian Federation Council's Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachyov has spoken out in favor of working new international law and a global treaty comparable to the decisions adopted in the wake of World War II.

"It seems to me that it is necessary to speak about a new global treaty of the scope of the agreements adopted in the wake of World War II," Kosachyov said in an online lecture on a post-pandemic world.

"We ought to tell each other that the experience of the past three decades proved to be unsuccessful for all. We ought to admit that we all committed mistakes throughout this period of human history, that we need to stop making complaints against each other and draw a line, a watershed, if you like, and agree that we'll sign new international law - not rules, but law, which will be binding for all," he said.

This new international law must include a principle that "you cannot ban others from doing what you allow yourself to do, or that you cannot allow yourself to do what you prohibit to others," he said.

The sole exception from this rule could be only voluntary, mutual obligations, Kosachyov said.

"For instance, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is a treaty which includes both nuclear and non-nuclear powers, but all agreed that the signatories themselves would voluntarily assume these unequal relations," the Russian senator said.

"On the whole, the following approach should be taken to this issue: a breach of the principle of equality in relations between states is a factor of violation of the rights of people who live in the country subject to such discrimination. Similarly, a violation of the principle of respect for countries' sovereignty is the same factor of violation of the rights of people living there," Kosachyov said.

Other instruments should be used to protect these rights, he said.

"As our opponents inside certain countries demand us to democratize (and, by the way, somethings rightly so, because they have more experience, more achievements, but sometimes their demands are absolutely groundless), we, for our part, also can and should demand that our opponents in the West democratize interstate relations on the basis of total observance of international law," he said.

This should become both a dominant idea of Russia's foreign policy and a unifying foundation for the foreign policy approaches of many other states, Kosachyov said.