Will support for the West’s cause in Ukraine lead to a more egalitarian and consistent rules-based world order? Or will it reinforce the hierarchical status quo, characterised by the selective compliance with international law across different wars and occupations? That has been the question on the minds of many of us in the Global South since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
The answer has been on full display since the start of Israel’s latest war on Gaza, triggered by the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023. The result has been an ongoing collapse of confidence in the so-called ‘rules-based international order’, not only in the eyes of the Global South but also in the eyes of many feminist, environmentalist and human rights movements around the world, who are appalled at their Western counterparts’ treatment of the Palestinians.
Popular anger continues to rage against the liberal notion of humanity that values civilian lives differently across different wars and occupations. After Israel’s siege and destruction of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza in November last year, the Indonesian aid organisation that ran the hospital, published a searing open letter to US President Joe Biden, stating: “You have destroyed the international rules of the game, insulted the authority of the United Nations (UN), torn apart the sense of justice, hurt human values, and tarnished the face of human civilization.”
