The 'Rules-Based Order' vs. International Law

The “rules-based order” is a slogan designed to lend an air of legitimacy to illegal actions.

Spencer Ackerman uses the illegal U.S. military presence in Syria to explain the difference between international law and the “rules-based international order”:

As I often do when I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding a matter of international law, I reached out to a longtime-source-turned-friend, Mary Ellen O'Connell, a professor of international law at Notre Dame. "The United States has never had a legal right to fight in Syria, let alone establish a belligerent occupation," O'Connell said. "In 2014, when U.S. forces first crossed into Syria, President Obama asserted in a letter to the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. was acting lawfully because Syria was 'unwilling or unable' to prevent ISIS from using its territory. The statement was inaccurate on the facts and had nothing to do with the law."

But none of that is a problem for the Rules-Based International Order. Once the U.S. decided it was going to operate in Syria, the Rules-Based International Order was fundamentally satisfied. U.S. allies who are and feel invested in the Rules-Based International Order went along with it.

The military presence in Syria is not the only example of how the U.S. hides behind its “rules-based” order rhetoric to flout international law, but it is one of the most clear-cut cases of how this works.