 Good afternoon, everyone. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to our final webinar for this term within the War Crimes Races Group series, broadly speaking. Today I'm very happy and extremely grateful that I have two leading scholars in international law, a former professor of mine, Professor Simon Chesterman, when I was at NYU, and a very, very good friend of mine and leading scholar, Lauri Malkso, who will provide us, they will give a joint webinar both on Russia and China and international law. Before I give the floor to our two speakers, I will introduce them briefly, although I don't think they need a proper introduction here, so it will be very brief introduction, and then we will start our discussion, you know, about the theme of this webinar. So Simon Chesterman is Dean and Provost Chair, Professor of the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, as Senior Director of Artificial Intelligence Governance at Artificial Intelligence Singapore. He's also editor of the Asian Journal of International Life Co-President of the Law School's Global League. Simon has written so many books and edited, co-edited books, including the last one about artificial intelligence, with the robots regulating artificial intelligence and the limits of law, but also very books related to the United Nations Law and humanities, about surveillance, and the first book that I remember on humanitarian intervention, Just Word or Just Peace. Lauri, Professor Lauri Malkso is a professor at the University of Tartu, Professor of International Law in Estonia, he's a member of the Institute of the Dwa International and the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He has offered the monograph Russian approaches to international law and co-authored Russia and the European Court of Human Rights, and has written many, many articles on the history and theory of international law in Russia and the Soviet Union. So today we will talk about the rise of China and the return of Russia and I would like to initiate this discussion between Lauri and Simon by referring back to the 2016 joint declaration between Russia and China and international law. How would you assess this declaration, you know, these fundamental principles of international law, their own understanding in the current state of affairs when we talk about the crisis or not of international law, the backlash against multilateralist. How do you see the relevance in 2021. Thank you very much. Simon, you have the floor. So thanks very much Maria and it's a pleasure to be joining your students virtually at least and to be back again virtually with with Lauri who who I've had long and interesting discussions with but too far with too long we've been apart. So I think documents like this come up periodically. And to me what's interesting is both what said and what's unsaid. So this document among other things 2016. It's a time when China is on the rise. It's when the, just before the South China Sea arbitration decision comes down but it's two years after Russia has annexed what many of us thought was illegally Crimea. And so what said, well, it's, it's an unremarkable document in all sorts of ways. It talks about sovereign equality, it talks about peaceful development, but also talks about respecting the legitimate interests of great powers. And so it doesn't use the word great powers however. But that's sort of what's unsaid. So let me just set through a few ideas out in three broad areas of about international law and power about whether countries like China offers on China are revolutionary or evolutionary, and then very briefly on exceptions and rules and how that applies to great powers. So on the larger question of power I mean international law has always been a bit uncomfortable talking about thinking about power. And the other question as I said reiterates the central myth of public international law which is sovereign equality that China has as many rights and as many obligations as to value. At the same time, the two powers that issue this joint declaration are both veto wielding members of the UN Security Council with nuclear powers that really see themselves as the major opposition, it would be argued to Western powers which which are the two powers on the UN Security Council. And now I've long wondered why we international lawyers are so uncomfortable with power I've come up with two possible reasons. The first is that international law likes to distinguish itself from international relations and international lawyers like to distinguish themselves from our theorists. And the history of international law in many ways is an attempt for law to become more than just one policy justification among others. So that's that's one part of the reason why I think we're a bit uncomfortable that power. The second is domestically lawyers, at least in Western governments in Western countries that embrace the rule of law in theory and practice tend to regard power as anathema to the rule of law. Now switch to China Chinese lawyers aren't quite so naive the Chinese legal system has the Supreme People's Court it's at its apex but above that is the party. Let's get to China's experience of international law China, when the when Chinese lawyers talk about international law, you will often hear reference to a century of humiliation, which refers to the period from the sort of mid 19th century or late early 19th century through the opium war through the unequal treaties as they came to be called in the early 20th century, where China came to be regarded self really as as an object of oppression by international law and through international law. This continues in some ways today with a very instrumentalist view of international law in 1996, for example, junction in gave a speech to Chinese Communist Party, a seminar on international law, where he argued that China's lack of knowledge about the discipline, put it at a strategic disadvantage, and he urged party members to enhance their skills and become adept at using international law as a weapon to defend the interest of the state and to maintain national pride. This is five years before Charles Dunlap popularized the term lawfare in English, and it was only a couple of years after that that the equivalent term in Chinese value John was explicitly included as part of China's strategic doctrine. And I don't think lawfare features quite so explicitly in any country's strategic doctrine. What about power, what about the objectives, what are countries like China trying to do with this power. Are they trying to overturn the system to remake it in their own image, or just tweak it to move it to their advantage. Now the Soviet Union was an explicitly revolutionary power. I'll leave Laurie to talk about the Russian Federation today. China today is contrary, but I would argue not revolutionary. And we've seen that through various points in its history, but just focusing on the last 30 years or so. Even during the Asian values debates of the 1990s, where China but also countries like Singapore where I'm normally based Malaysia, we're pushing an Asian values agenda. This was really not a positive political agenda, but really a defense against criticism. If we move forward to the early 2000s back in 2001, there was the start of a language in in Washington in particular. This is the start of the George W Bush administration the first months of 2001, where there was semi serious talk about containing China, moving from the Clinton doctrine of strategic partnership, strategic partnership to strategic competitors. And some of you will remember that EP three spy plane incident that 20 years ago was down on Highland Island. But the main thing most of you might know from 20 years ago is that there was the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States, and that really pushed China off the foreign policy agenda for a decade, which was exactly what China wanted. So basically, under mouth under Deng Xiaoping, China had embraced a policy of Taoguang Yang Wei, which means sort of basically nourish obscurity keep your light under a bushel and develop your economy. So that when the West sort of turned its attention back to China. It was after the Olympic Games in 2008. It was after China's economy had really taken off. And at this point, there's really no meaningful way in which China could be contained in the way that at least the some of the Hawks were advocating back in 2001. What China trying to do occasionally there are arguments that China is proposing a kind of East failure in opposition to West failure. But I don't take that particularly seriously. Most of what China articulates is in fact quite consistent with the joint declaration, which harkens back to other Chinese doctrines like the five five principles of peaceful coexistence. So anything, this is really a conservative approach to international or a very traditional West failure and state centric sovereignty defending understanding of international or maybe even a 19th century interpretation of international because it doesn't just reiterate the prohibition on the use of force and opposition to non intervention. It also expresses a desire for non interference and non interference and non intervention were almost interchangeable during the 19th century but what it meant was that some countries would argue that it was inappropriate even to comment on domestic affairs, quite apart from whether you were planning to intervene in them, even though at that point war itself was not illegal. And this really highlights now one of the fundamental contradictions in China's own international and domestic policies. Additionally, China continues to identify as socialist, albeit a socialism with Chinese characteristics externally however China's foreign policy and approach to international law and institutions. There's almost no resemblance to that ideology. It would be hard, for example to reconcile socialist legal philosophy with China's embrace of investment trees. For example, even the much for to belt road initiative is really an economic strategy rather than a normative one. Today, China, despite some of this rhetoric that occasionally comes out, at least at the international level is very much an active player of the game of international affairs. It was long suspicious that the UN, for example, at least until 1971, when, at which point it had been represented by Taipei notional China had been represented by Taipei and the UN charter store refers to the Republic of China. It's now 50 years since China joined the United Nations, and today it's the ninth largest contributor to peacekeeping operations, and it sends more peacekeepers than all the other P five members combined. Last year, it did lose a bid to have Chinese National run the world international intellectual property organization, which I mentioned partly because China lost this competition and also because one of my alumni from National University of Singapore won, but the other reason wasn't just that my candidate was a great guy, but also because China was already heading for the 15 UN specialized agencies, when I think no other country heads more than one. So China's become much more active much more involved much more enmeshed in the international system than certainly the the period of unequal treaties and the century of humiliation would have would have suggested. And Chinese representatives, so the foreign minister, for example, are at pains to express how its embrace of the rule of law at the international level is a great sacrifice by China, given this history. But it's a self interested sacrifice because so much of what happens today has worked out for China. So China has managed to develop its economy. It's managed to build on a world order that has been for the most part, peaceful and prosperous. It's not the kind of investment that colonial powers put into running colonies or the kind of security guarantees the United States has offered over the past 70 or so years. So at the moment China is kind of winning in this battle, although in the last sort of three or four years that has suffered a number of setbacks which perhaps we could talk about in terms of its behavior in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and the whole context of the pandemic. So let me stop with with a final set of observations just about the exception of the rule. Because the true test for normative regime like the international legal order is whether it can discipline its great powers. The history of the rule of law at the domestic level can be measured by its application to kings and emperors, and the success of the rule of law in many countries and England is perhaps the easiest example the point to often came in the context of revolutions, and in the English case, the beheadings of some of these monarchs. So China and Russia today, as great powers that did not write the legal order, but are active within it and rising within it are hard cases for international law. There's a famous observation sometimes attributed to Napoleon that China, back in the, in the 19th century was a sleeping giant, let her lie and sleep, he has said to have warned for when she awakens she will shake the world. Now, letting China sleep is not a serious option, nor is containing it anymore a serious option. And so one of the dilemmas for international law I think going back to Maria's opening one of the reasons why we sometimes talk about a kind of structural challenge to international law is that China and I would say Russia are both unusual cases in that they're seeking to rise for a second time. And this is very unusual in world order. One thing that's usually typified world order is that when a great power has risen, it's changed the normative order to suit its interests. But we're in an odd situation where we have both China and arguably Russia rising for a second time. One big difference perhaps is that China's glory days were more than a century ago, whereas Russia's president is its current president was alive during its decline. So I was here and turn over to Laurie for his take on this. So, Laurie, what's your take on the joint declaration and what are all those troops doing on the border with Ukraine. Well, I'm also very glad to participate in this conversation today. And, you know, I need it's, it's, it's fascinating to speak about Russia's approaches to international law at the day when presidents by Biden and Putin are meeting and I understand discussing the security situation, especially at the Russian-Ukrainian border. Now, when starting from this declaration, I think Simon is right to say that it's equally fascinating. What is in there and what isn't. And sometimes this, what is addressed is kind of, it's not spoken out, but you can see what it is. And I think from Russia's viewpoint, I think Russia feels very strongly that Moscow was a key participant in the making of the foundations of international law in 1945. And I think they have a different interpretation of that, what this, you know, United Nations order, global security order was, was meant to be one of those words that is missing usually in these kinds of documents is actually human rights. I think when, when, and the other is democracy. So when countries like Russia and China when they are always highlighting state sovereignty and non-intervention, this is also an indirect way of, of downplaying human rights and, you know, democratic features of state governments in the constitution of international order. And I think from Russia's perspective, 1945, because of this veto power, for example, which was actually, let's not forget, agreed initially in Crimea in, in February 1945 at the conference of, of Yalta. The UN system, I think in the Russian thinking includes some sort of Schmittian gross realm for the West, but also for the others, for the other great players. And I think that Russia's problem with international law in our time is, is probably that their sense, which is not a legal idea, but it's more really political, cultural, philosophical, even theological idea, because, you know, Russian approaches can only be understood against the backdrop of, I don't know, for example, the Messianic ideas that Russia has, has had, for example, as a leader of Eastern Christianity against the West, otherwise you can't, you can fully understand this why this opposition to the, to the United States and other European leading Western nations in some moments of history. And, and then, so the West, according to this reading has gone too far or is about going too far and this, of course, deserves a reaction so so I think they have become more explicit about it. President Putin has written an article saying that Russia and Ukraine are really the same nation. So I think we're living as far as Russia is concerned in quite, quite a dangerous time with these kind of ideas. Yes, we know that the other dangerous point point is Taiwan. And we also know that legally, China always has entertained this claim that Taiwan, there's one China policy and Taiwan is, is part of, you know, mainland China. But, but, but there has been a shift in that regard in, in, in Russian public pronouncements, I would say 10 years ago it would have been very unlikely that the Russian leader would have said that Ukraine, you know, should watch out because it's not really an independent country or at least shouldn't join the some sort of other, other regional group of countries. And now, in a way, Russia, Russia does that. And unfortunately, it reminds me this is a very dangerous, maybe provocative parallel but a little bit. Today's Russia, in terms of its political worldview of its elites reminds me a little bit of the late years of Weimar Germany, somehow this idea of revanchism, somehow this idea of, you know, our borders are not fully just because it's not only Ukraine it's also really about Belarus in a sense that is Belarus like a really, you know, can it be allowed to be really independent country because the more difficult the situation of President Lukashenko became the more intense became the talk about intensifying the so called Union State between Russia and Ukraine and therefore it seems to me that especially those Eastern Slav republics, Russia's sort of foreign borders are in this sense porous that Russia really accepted the independence of those countries under the silent condition that they belong to the Russian regional space grows around and and in that in Belarus, the problem is and this is why Russia is criticizing those extensive ideas of human rights and democracy. They see that it can lead to, you know, I don't know ideas that what if what if Belarus should even look towards the west. What if these ideas autocratic ideas of government what if they are antiquated and again this creates, you know, problems in the security if if Belarus doesn't know anymore where it should belong for historical reasons. So I guess I'll stop here and of course in this declaration, very fascinating parties for example the one concerning dispute resolution in which both countries are making the point that, you know, we shouldn't only look at just judicially binding dispute resolution mechanisms but also political means but you know all all smaller neighbors of those countries they can they have a lot of stories about how diplomatic negotiations go with with greater powers as they as they are and also we know from the history of judicial settlement that at least you know Soviet Union was quite hostile towards it and and I think Russia hasn't made a full break through either rather in the context of of the European Court of Human Rights for example which in a way features also a little bit interstate dispute settlement elements. Russia is currently making a step back since at least 2020 constitutional amendments which basically create the priority of constitutional law and interpretations over the interpretations of international bodies and courts. Thank you very much both of you for this introductory for those introductory comments. Yeah, I was particularly intrigued by this reference to the power concept, you know, and our myth among international lawyers, you know about the power and the difference between law and how we consider power to be an anathema contrary to China what Simon said and Russia. And I would like, although both of you touch upon that you know I would like a little bit to to push further and to ask, how do you see the differences between these two countries when it comes to the instrumentalization of law, because Simon you know spoke about that that we are talking about this rising again powers and although lauri mentioned that Russia considers to be itself you know to be one of the founding contributors you know to the international legal order. However, you know we see a difference into this famous law fair as we say instrumentalization of law by by both countries. And on top of that I would like to add to what extent you know we can we can tie it up to a little bit when we talk about in liberal states you know within this in liberal is to what extent you know there is a particular aspect of instrumentalization of law or maybe not when it comes from both countries. Thank you Simon. Sure. So, so let me let me start, not by answering the question directly but by saying how surprised. So many Western observers of China are based on the past two decades where I think there was an assumption on the part of many that with economic development would come. Now, organically a kind of natural understanding that the rule of law should be applied that there should be constraints on domestic power. And that basically you should become a right minded, a good thinking international citizen that would liberalize politically at the same time as liberalizing economically and that didn't happen. And there's a lot of soul searching that New York Times did a very interesting piece as a whole literature on this. And I think that kind of misunderstands the Chinese conception of power, where power within China really is embodied in an idea of the state. I mean, this is a slight diversion but there's a point to it. You mentioned the work I've been doing on artificial intelligence. One of the really fascinating observations if you look around the world at how artificial intelligence and how data is regulated, simplification but Europe is very much rights based. So you have the GDPR and so on this this recent legend this recent draft AI act, the United States dominated by market actors, and China is very relentlessly focused on the state, whether it's data localization, or artificial intelligence is how to project state power, and, and even when they're raining in tech companies it's how to project state power so I think there is a kind of real identification with the state. And that's particularly true of the Xi Jinping regime. I mean, I'm among those who kind of joked as he started accruing titles. There was this joke among China observers and I'm a marginal observer of China but people who know China much better than I would say are the more titles he accrues the weaker he is, because that that demonstrates desperation and Deng Xiaoping at the height of his power famously the only time only tightly had was honorary chair of the Chinese bridge association. But I think now that Xi Jinping is essentially abolished term limits, he's written himself into Chinese history. He is the embodiment of power now also. And so I think China really stands as an alternative understanding of the nature of power, both domestically, and to some extent internationally and here I'll throw to Laurie because I do think there are differences, even though both states are extremely strong leaders in China. I think the idea of Chinese destiny is of being a great, but also seeing themselves as a responsible power. And it's a very utilitarian approach it's about sort of developing supply chains having the Belt Road initiative to secure China's future. There is an element of the gross realm in the sense of greater China, but as long as you understand China includes Taiwan Hong Kong, Macau Tibet, Xinjiang. I don't think China has sort of aspirations to territory beyond that. And that's an interesting comparison with what Laurie I think accurately describes as kind of messianic view that you sometimes see in Russia, and a much more understanding of what Russian territory broadly understood or Russian claims to territory reflect. So I'm not sure I'm completely answering the question but that's at least a response and maybe enough to give Laurie a chance to properly answer the question. So power and how it reflects in those international law approaches. The question was discussed a lot during the Soviet periods in the, in the West, there was almost like, you know, literary genre of discussing whether for the Soviet Union international law is anything more than a kind of basically tool of state politics kind of propaganda tool. And, and it's quite interesting that, you know, the several authors, for example, partial colonies in the 1930s, they said very explicitly for us international law is simply a class struggle for struggle between classes so we are at state with a different class culture, we use it obviously politically and it translates in all spheres of international law in his discussion, for example, he says that, you know, Paktasun Cervanda might generally apply but if it's in the interest of the one and only communist country of the world to, you know, overturn a treaty then of course they can do and of course they will do so. So this kind of instrumentalizing, instrumentalizing approach, it's, it's, it's very much at least in the 20th, 20th century history, 20th century history of the Soviet Union approaches to international law. One of the concepts that I would also bring in is, for example, my countryman Rain Mules on who used to work in Moscow in the 1980s, he has recently brought in the old concept from the earlier centuries of European history balance of power that that somehow, you know, Russia has basically hasn't had an amazing legal argument for, for instance, annexing Crimea, you know, most countries do not really share this Russia's perspective but Mules says that let's not look into those use of bellum details, it's about the balance of power. That's why Russia really corrected and this is a pro-Russian argument of course. Russia is correcting basically what it lost in the moment of weakness and actually people who have studied the history of international treaty law know how important was the question of this, you know, one of the questions in international treaties, when can you make exceptions to Paktasun Cervanda? So this, this question, the famous London declaration I think it was 1870, I don't know, 71, but when basically Russia had agreed after the Crimean War 1856 to basically not to have a navy in the Black Sea but later on when the circumstances changed there was this war between Russia and Germany suddenly came in with the navy and that kind of changed the treaty unilaterally or violated it but also presented with new facts. So it is an old feature of international law and practice, you know, to do that somehow. Sometimes in international law we are very idealistic. We think that the United Nations Charter and all these amazing multilateral treaties which emphasized, for example, Paktasun Cervanda, they changed it all. They changed its power politics but maybe if you are sort of Tsar of Russia and you think what your predecessors accomplished and what your predecessors lost and what is your role in time then, you know, if that is the main thing you value in a way whatever has remained of the empire then, you know, I'm not sure Paktasun Cervanda is always your main concern. Maybe just to react to that. I mean, this is sort of an example of what Lowry just described as the sort of Schmittian undercarriage, the fundamental question of who's a friend, who's an enemy. But that's also embraced sometimes in mainstream international law. I mean one example, the nuclear weapons advisory opinion back in 1996, I think, where the International Court of Justice said well we can't really understand, we can't really imagine circumstances in which the use of nuclear weapons would be justified, unless the very existence of the state were in question. And that kind of limit question comes up only marginally for the most part in international law but I think for powers like Russia, perhaps like China, sometimes that's more to the foreground. And so those power arguments exist in the background of international law, but some countries are more willing to bring them to the foreground. Wow. Thank you very much both of you. I would like to ask one more question and maybe then open the floor you know I can see we have two questions already in the Q&A and encourage our participants to post more questions. Let's talk about the power, the exceptionalism, the reviving, the use of the language of international law, but Lowry before we start we talk also about double standards, you know in the joint state declaration, you know, the two powers they talk they criticize the double standards. I can say that you know I take this opportunity to speak on behalf of the voice of some of my students, you know younger students will say, oh come on you always criticize you know Russia and China, and you have this pro-western position but actually how different you know are different powers when they use the language of international law compared you know to to to western powers and we cannot do justice you know by using these thick brass terms. And my mind goes to the recent what we all experienced during almost two years now in the pandemic. And I remember you know when I talk about the pandemic and how different countries deal with the pandemic you know I was quite intrigued by the response of my students we don't see a big difference you know between what happens in US you know or in other countries and what happened in so kind non-democratic and I don't again I didn't want to go down this road because I know it's very debatable regimes. So I was wondering you know what is your response to that are they actually apart from the power and the language of power and the concept of power are they so different you know from what we call the west. So you asked, asked me the first. I mean that we have to keep in mind what is the main source of this talk about double standards. These. I think in the in the area of international security and war. It is basically the cost of and the Iraq war, because of intervention and Iraq war and we all remember those debates and we remember the argument about maybe illegal but still legitimate, which was really a way of getting away with it and if you if you know that it's somehow illegal it remains a problem you know for for for those other countries that maybe you know had this more Stalinist interpretation of what the United Nations Charter meant and everyone you know gets to keep their sovereignty somehow as a main principle and then it was for them it was of course you know a unilateral attempt to change the rule of rules of the game in the name of human rights and so on. And, or, and you know it's it's a very old Soviet trope to say that the West is hypocritical about human rights. Yeah, you say that. Why don't you have proper elections, but at the same time you know the Soviets would say that there are homeless people near Capitol Hill in Washington DC. And now, you know, there would be some other argument but the bottom line is that you know everybody has problems with human rights so how come, you know, non Western countries, you know get in foreign policy to be criticized about with about it. But I, I just I watched yesterday a documentary film about the poisoning of Navalny and and and I'm still under the under influence of it somehow. If it's, you know, it's, I would still on the gut level. We are all you know consumers of news we make us some sort of image off of the West. I think that there are certain things that Western countries, Western governments really don't do on a daily basis. I live in an illusion, you know, I was, I was 16 when the Soviet Union disintegrated and I ended up, you know, my country, of course very much wanted to join the Western camp so maybe it's psychologically necessary for me to say that we made a good decision, but I still think I genuinely believe it that for example, the situation like seeing young, however much or little we know about it, what is going on there wouldn't be possible, you know, in, in France or in, even in the United States. So in this sense, yes, there, there is a lot of, you know, foreign policy truth in it that countries are hypocritical, we all like to talk, you know, it's a little bit like humans we we we don't see our own flaws right it's it's a, for example, Russia always said to the European Union that you know, how come everybody is criticizing Russia for its human rights record but why didn't Estonia and Latvia give citizenship to their Russian speaking, you know, settlers from the Soviet period, you know, why didn't they get it automatically so so there's always these two argument, however, I think that in countries like Russia and China, this is a slightly systemic problem still because they're not really. I think today they're not democratic countries in the Western sense, maybe Russia wanted to be in the 90s, I'm not sure where the China ever wanted to be probably not I mean if you with one party rule you cannot really, really be that. So, so, in a way, how can we expect the same kind of perspective on on, I don't know, human rights, for example, if that is the political system. I think if I can just follow on I mean I think Laurie made good points in particular about sort of the use of force the arguments about Kosovo in Iraq and I think. I think I'm right that during the annex the vision of Crimea, President Putin actually referenced the Kosovo invasion as a kind of precedent. So you can see similar arguments on the kind of double standards or with regard to human rights and democracy. I mean so I'm based normally in Singapore, Singapore has an internal security act that allows the government to detain individuals essentially without trial on a two year renewal basis. And Singapore used to get criticized a lot for its activation of that until until 2001. And from 2001 onwards, the United States kept its mouth shut and Laurie's right that you don't have camps on the scale of Xinjiang, but Guantanamo Bay, and then Abu Ghraib, and the series of things that happened after September 11 I think really eroded the moral capital of the United States so that's that's one great setback in terms of human rights that when the United States felt threatened. It basically ignored all sorts of rights, human rights that it had helped establish. And countries like Russia or China will say, as China has well we face this sort of terrorist threat all the time. And that's why we do these things. So that's that's one problem on democracy. I think the whole, not, I'm hesitant even to invoke the word but the whole Trump phenomenon, but not just Trump or a barn in Hungary and populist leaders elsewhere is leading to a real rethink in many ways of the nature of the attractiveness of democracy, which is kind of tragic. So I think for these reasons that the double standards aren't just justifications for other countries to violate norms. But they're actually leading some countries to rethink how how much for granted we should take those norms in the first place. I wish we could continue that forever so many things I don't even dare to use the word democracy, I would say but I can see that we have about six. Oh my God seven questions here so I do I want to do justice you know to our participants. So, I'll try to to to wrap up the question to to to couple the questions if that's okay with you, you know, our, you can always, you can also read Simon and Lowry. The question so I will start. Sorry for that. Now the system is not the best. Sorry to scroll up. So first the question of not as although I saw Catherine had a question before and it's about the annexation of of Crimea by Russia, and the question of not as my colleague here an expert on Russia as well as do you think they fully share views of separatism. So that's, that's one question. And also the question by Eduardo at one of our postgraduate students here from Brazil. He asked, I can think of examples of power protection from China Russia towards international legal order. Do you believe that Russia and China will rise within the international legal order saving some of the new features such as creating saving sovereignty to cyber space where they have a particular interest. So that's about Tom Gisburg's idea of authoritarian international law. And the question is to what extent it's a new phenomenon or inherently international law is your territory and So that might be enough to that's enough. That's what I want to say that's enough, please, you know. Okay, very, very, I'll try to be brief but they're great questions each of which could be a seminar in itself. Yeah, I mean I think it has been interesting that countries like China and Russia, although they're part of the bricks, they're part of the Shanghai cooperation organization. There's always been a kind of frenemy element to their relationship and that goes back to Mao's relationship in the 1960s. And on the sort of annexation I think China and Russia, like other great powers like other countries, a little bit wary of breaking down norms that actually serve them well. And so we saw that with the West I mean just to go back to Kosovo briefly. When before the International Court of Justice, only one country said that what NATO did was right and justified. And that was Belgium. And the rest of the countries all made arguments well procedurally the Security Council this and you shouldn't have jurisdiction that only only Belgium was bowls enough dumb enough to argue that this was a right because I think others understood that if it was articulated as a right then others could use that right also. And that partly expresses the China's weariness of generally saying yeah sure Russia wants to remain Crimea that's just like Xinjiang or Taiwan. I think I think there was some hesitation there. On the question of power projection. I do think that, and I'll link this with Tom Ginsburg. So both Russia and China I'll focus on China China does have an interest in developing international law incrementally, where, where it suits it and in other areas holding it back. So developing it incrementally belt road initiative I mentioned is a kind of economic push. It wants to expand its influence it wants access to resources supply chains, but it doesn't want to be constrained by third party dispute resolution and doesn't want to be interfered with through things like responsibility to protect. And so in some of these areas you do see a kind of effort to project through through treaties through through norms of trying to get access to natural resources, but also to hold back certain aspects of international which is why I sort of make the argument that China's in many ways a conservative power, because the kind of vision of international that China has really is a traditionalist, sovereign test understanding of power that international law ends at the borders. The problem of course, Larry has already highlighted where exactly those borders line. And for China. There was an interesting period when the nine dashed line in the South China Sea. It seemed to be claiming against all international or there was claiming these as territorial waters, and then subsequently retreated from that. But, but to claim only the relevant waters. So I'll stop there, Larry, over to you. Yes, I would want to expand on this historical point. Of course, the Chinese Russia's mutual history in international law goes further back from the from the Soviet Union and it's quite quite interesting one with with the Treaty of Nerchinsk already in the end of the 17th century. And other other treaties that both countries concluded also regulating the borders and and you know there is this historical debate whether, you know, Russia was one of the European colonizing powers towards China because in earlier times that there was also the view that Russia managed to take too much territories on the on the Russia's excuse me under Chinese historical whatever control, and that but still the interesting phenomenon is that the two countries agreed on their mutual border and this is quite important so for example when my father was a Soviet soldier then he when he was taken to this Soviet Far East. I mean, we had a there was a conscript army in the Soviet Union, then he he at some point was also stationed in this place near I think Amur river where where the war between the countries two countries had taken place in the in the 60s. Also about the, about the border. How about the separatism that Natasha is asking yes fascinating phenomenon that in this United Nations General Assembly voting of the Crimea resolution. In March 2014, China abstains. A lot of interpretations are possible what this abstention means but but I think each country thinks about situations like that in terms of precedence what it means. What will it mean to me, I mean that let's, you know, in the best cases example is cause of all, you know, the EU countries that have not recognized cause of all have all irredentist fears. So they, they simply haven't recognized cause of all countries like Romania and Spain, for example. Yes. And, and, and I think what I understand from Chinese discussions is that that the collapse of the Soviet Union the way that the way Gorbachev and the Communist Party at that time managed it all in 1991 is like a lesson for China for how now to do it. You know, they did it wrong and now Russia has to fix all this. You know, 30 years later they have to wonder is Eastern Ukraine part of Ukraine or is it still somehow part of Russia or is it something, something third. And therefore, I think the Chinese view is that you know things like that, if you're a true empire you don't let things like that happen in the in the first place if you can, if you can avoid that. And, and then I think I read from this Chinese abstention also sort of silent criticism of Russia that well you still you recognize yourself that that Ukraine is a separate country in 1991. And this should also matter somehow you so it's your problem, you know, you cannot, you cannot make us all own on this. Let's not forget that that Russia and Ukraine concluded even a border treaty in 2003, according to which Crimea was was part of Ukraine, and all of course, from Moscow's perspective, under the assumption that that Ukraine doesn't leave the, you know, the Moscow led regional alliance. Okay, I think there are a couple. We have 10 more minutes if it's okay with you there are some questions of their directly addressed to each of you so for Simon the first question I managed to scroll up from Catherine was is a although we don't use the word democracy. She asks, you know about this project, new project in China about the whole process democracy. I was not aware of that I need I have to admit you know and what that implies. I don't know if you want to comment on that. So, Larry there is a question up. It goes back to what we talk all the time you know from Chris. He asks about the understanding of state is self determination you know and sovereignty, you know, via the Russian lenses. So there is a question about the nature of international law we know how international law can be more. It can be considered more binding or something I don't know if you would like to comment on that. You know, so goes back to you. So briefly on China and democracy so China's long experimented with sort of village level democracy intra party democracy. So I think it's partly speaks to the idea that barry, which I think is correct that China watched with horror I happen to be in China in not living in China in 1991. And there was not a lot of press about what was going on in Russia but I know there was a lot of examination in retrospect I know there was a lot of examination in the government. So China, rather than making the mistakes I think which they would regard having been made in Russia, both in terms of, well one, setting up a union of separate republics, which could then separate I mean that would never happen in China, but to the sort of move to democracy has been resisted in an interesting way. So you have this sort of party level democracy, you have village level democracy, but an effort to avoid sort of mass mobilization. So this is one of the interesting things that worries the Chinese government. I think probably a little less than it did in the past, but there used to be two fears in China. One was too much Western liberalization which would lead to human rights and fragmentation. The other was too much nationalism, which would sort of lead the state down a very dangerous path. And that lab that second thing that we see at the moment, episodically with respect to Taiwan and that's what I think worries China watches because there is a real danger and I say China watches both within and without China, because I think there is a real danger that if the the rhetoric gets ramped up too high. It'll be hard to pull back from the precipice. Laurie. Yeah, if I may. I want to say a word about this Tom Ginsburg's idea of authoritarian international law. I, I think that we can divide the world, the regimes into democracies and authoritarian in even totalitarian countries, but in all of it is also some sort of cultural perhaps civilizational component, namely, you know, even democracies can be quite in a sense of how it works. Obviously it works differently in India than in Switzerland in some aspects. And so I think we have to keep that in mind and I think what we see to trying to a little bit start starting to wrap up some of the ideas. I think Russia's and China's approach to international law is also some sort of civilizational critique of Western universality that that somehow, you know, the West is saying, international law is this international law is that don't violate it. But but they are in a way asking, you know, are you sure that that this is, first of all, that you can say it for all of us. And, and secondly, are you sure that you don't yourself have a cultural bias in other words what if you're behind your quest for this is just another civilization that was super influential in the history of humankind, you know, dominant, and behind colonialism and mostly and everything but but that is not somehow the, the only, only one out out there. And I think this is the one of the key, key questions because, because one, I was thinking further also about this previous question, you know, and about double standards and is it actually so that everybody's as a sinner in and therefore, you know, we are unfair if you only only criticize Russia and China, I was thinking about this situation with with the migrants at the Poland at Poland's border. So it's interesting that this, this initiative comes from President Lukashenko, who, you know, was declared a pariah by the West, and now he's in a way behaving like pariah he says that you know I'm doing whatever I can, I can, I can do whatever I can do, but in his approach is also a kind of civilizational critique of, in a way, you know, hypocrisy in Europe or in the West because, because these, these leaders they perceive it so that the West was always saying that, you know, human rights are universal, the right to claim asylum was made universal but in reality it turns out that, that, that there is a civilizational component in all of that and actually hard fact that that you know many Europeans are not super excited in terms of getting this influx of migrants from Middle Eastern countries, for example, so, so I think Lukashenko, after he was declared pariah he's now also laughing, he's saying that look to where are you universal human rights, if, if, if there's no, no access point to present those documents that I want to get asylum then, then you know your, your claim that these are some sort of universal rights were, were hypocritical, so it's, it is a global conversation in that sense. Thank you very much for that. Well, Lukashenko is using the language of Erdogan, you know, exactly the same language against Europe and Europe put itself in this position, you know, so both Lukashenko and Erdogan can use that those arguments against them. I want to complete and finish here with one question, a final question to both of you, if it's okay. I'm working myself on a project about the bright side of international law and already it's, yeah, you smile, okay, already it's problematic. Instead of the dark side, I'm trying to think the bright side of international law. So though we spoke about power, double standards, hypocrisy, critique, I was wondering, you know, if you, if you were going, you know, to give a final comment, what would you say that why still, still, why should we still believe in that relevance of international law nowadays in 2021? Just, I know you didn't expect that question, you know. Yeah, I think it's a great question. I would like to take the opportunity, you know, to give this kind of note, you know, after all this discussion, so. I mean, I remain incredibly optimistic about international law. I'm more worried about things like climate change and our ability to deal with that than I am about sort of international law breaking down. And I suppose I'll wrap up, partly addresses one of the questions as well. We were talking about power quite openly and maybe a bit of biography would help. I got interested in law in general, because I was interested in how power is regulated in society and international law is just more obvious that the power dynamic is there but all societies where there is law underpinning there are questions of power. So I don't get depressed about the fact that international law has much more open debates that it's legitimacy is contested that it's horizontally organized with these notionally equal states rather than vertically organized with a clear hierarchy it's much messier. It's, it's legitimacy as I said has to be continually argued for but that makes it all the more interesting. And examples of hope even come up in the cases that we've spoken about. So, Kosovo, this desperate desire not to make it a precedent constrained behavior. Iraq, the fact that it was widely regarded as unlawful in 2003 meant that the US, Poland, Britain and Australia did it almost alone. Compare that with the 1991 war where arguably the US actually made a profit. So that applies to the West it also applies to Russia and China I think China has backed away from some of its extreme claims about the South China Sea arbitration, because it understands that the UN Convention on the law of the sea, which it signed, and the Americans haven't well the Americans have signed it haven't ratified. So it understands that it's self interest lies in that direction. And I'm kind of curious and Laura can speak to this but even Russia, I think sees itself interest lying, not in just running rough shot over the institution of international law, but trying to use international law and bend it, perhaps, but not break it. So yeah I remain overall optimistic and fall back on Louis Henkins old line that it's kind of remarkable but it's true that most nations obey most of international law, most of the time. Well, I think in, you know, with parallels to science fiction, if the earth would be attacked by aliens, then all these problems and skirmishes what matters more states sovereignty or human rights there will will figure that out and will will somehow, you know, pull our resources together and maybe maybe make a piece but in the in the meantime you know we we still can have those those quarrels but on the on the positive side I mean it depends on what your temperament ease and how you want to see that and for for somebody the fact that countries talking about international law a lot is still, you know, something worth. I mean that that Russia actually makes the effort, for example in its national security and foreign policy doctrines, there is almost no other country that I'm aware of that talks so much about international law yes it understands differently from than the Western countries but it's still some sort of, you know, attempt to take, you know, to take it somehow seriously. And there is also a realization in this Russia China document proves that with these emphasis on on state, you know states are intent territorial integrity that on the one hand these big countries may appear as bullies towards towards Japan and Ukraine but but but they are also worried genuinely worried about their own huge territories I mean even already the Soviet Union as militarized as it was couldn't really guard every square meter, you know, super effectively, you know, if you're just so big so they still continue to need international law in the future as well. Well, on that note, on that positive or bright or whatever we call it note I want to thank our speakers I want to thank lauri I want to thank Simon it's one almost 1am in Melbourne now. Oh my gosh that clock is broken but it's one o'clock. Thank you very much for being with us that early in the morning thank you very much lauri from Estonia I want to thank all our participants. The co convenience of the war crimes research group Professor James down Professor Rachel care. It was a great pleasure to have you to engage in this discussion, you know, and to to finalize this term with this truly intriguing conversation. Thank you all very very much and I really hope to see you in person when the virus allows that and happy holidays and made 2022 be a better year for everyone. You know, that's it so that we will be able again to travel and to meet in person. Thank you once more thank you that was really, really fun. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Thank you very much. Thank you all.