THE President of the United States behaviour is really ruining the energy of my yoga affirmations in the morning – apparently yelling Sc**w Trump from the prayer position isn’t appropriate to conclude daily yogalates fusion.
But the thing is I really do feel like I’m living in a worrying alternate reality right now – and it’s hard to clear the mind when global security alliances seem to be dangerously crumbling.
In one universe are those who look at recent events and see something stark and deeply troubling: a president using military force against another state in circumstances that clearly breach international law. In the other are those who justify it, reframe it, or simply refuse to name it for what it is. The divide isn’t only between Trump’s bolty-eyed supporters in the US and everyone else. It extends far beyond that, reaching into allied governments and political leaderships that should certainly know better.
I find watching senior figures contort themselves in interviews to avoid saying the obvious, genuinely surreal.
When leaders like Sir Keir Starmer hesitate and offer evasive answers, it’s not because the legal position is complex it’s because acknowledging the truth would require political courage. It would involve stating plainly that what has been done is not lawful, even if it was done by a powerful ally, and even if the man targeted is himself a deeply flawed and repressive leader.
Under international law, the use of force against another state is crystal clear. So clear it could easily be explained to the bright students of the Infant/Junior School CE so I’m fairly sure a qualified barrister like the UK PM understands.
For such an act to be lawful, at least one of three conditions must apply. There must be a valid warrant issued by the International Criminal Court or another recognised international tribunal. There must be an explicit mandate from the United Nations Security Council. Or there must be a clear and lawful loss or waiver of head of state immunity. Strip away the rhetoric and the moral posturing, and none of these conditions have been met.
This isn’t some dry old technicality chay it’s how the international system is supposed to work. This is exactly the sort of moment the law is meant to deal with: when everyone is all worked up and there’s a temptation is to act first and justify later. It exists to prevent the world from sliding into a system where power determines who may be attacked and who may not.
OK so the president targeted is a bad man who has done bad things. But it’s also beside the point. The law is not supposed to operate on all of our random moral judgements or even political convenience. If it did there would be no laws.
This is the same reason vigilantism is illegal. We don’t allow individuals to pick up guns and shoot someone because they believe that person is dangerous. We don’t permit people to kidnap or execute others because they are convinced they are in the right. Even when someone is widely regarded as an absolute ass the response must still be lawful. Well especially then.
And here in the Falkland Islands, what happened in Venezuela matters in a way that isn’t abstract. We actually lived with the consequences of what occurred when international law was ignored and territorial sovereignty was violated by force. We know, from lived experience, that illegal acts don’t become acceptable all of a sudden simply because the aggressor claims moral justification.
What I find most disorienting though, is not simply that an apparent breach of international law has occurred, but that many people are treating the perpetrator as a hero for it. The cheers, the applause, the refusal even to name the act as illegal create a sense of unreality. It’s like facts have become optional.
So which universe are we meant to inhabit eh? The one where laws still matter, where illegal acts are called illegal regardless of who commits them, and where power doesn’t grant protection from accountability. Or the one where those principles are quietly shelved whenever they become inconvenient.
We can’t sustain both. At some point, we have to decide whether international law is real or just a sexy little decoration.