INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS CHALLENGES IN THE RUSSIA- UKRAINE WAR

Abstract

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine is challenging international
relations, with the unmitigated destruction of lives and billions of dollars in national asserts
on both sides. What is more worrisome in the crisis, is that scholars in the field are bereft of
any logical explanation to the stand of international law as an instrument of taming unilateral
actions of states and the rascality. This study raises pertinent research questions: Does
international law live up to its biddings? Does it still regulate the conduct of state and
nonstate actors in the international system? Why has Russia damned and taken the law for
worthless documentation, as it continues to obdurate its atrocious invasion of Ukraine? Is the
international system helpless, or how does it extricate itself from this rumble? The work used
a secondary qualitative method for data collection, and to interrogate the stand of Russia and
the position of international law in the war, the work utilised a compound analysis of realism
state-centred theory, offensive realism and protracted social conflict (PSC) theory. Findings
show that Russia‘s claim of self-defence and humanitarian interventions are mere pretentious
deceit without moral or legal logic. The scenario seems to show that international law a mere
document of moral jurisdiction impinging on the UN an irredeemable limitation. This study
concludes that international law is weak, as the umbrella body of interstate relations- the UN
has an inherent weakness as it lacks sufficient legal mandate for enforce sanctions on
sovereign states actions that violates its laws. The paper suggests that the way to curb further
free-for-all violations of international law and the kind of carnage going on in the war
between Russia and Ukraine is, to give the UN stronger legal mandate to enforce its laws on
deviant states.