In the current debate, coinciding with the latest events in Venezuela, it is often claimed that the international order has entered a phase of unprecedented crisis, evidenced by the alleged collapse of international law. However, this interpretation is problematic when analyzed in light of the main currents of realism in international relations, which have historically questioned the idea that supranational legal norms can substantially constrain the behavior of the great powers.
Rather than a collapse of international law, what we are witnessing today is the gradual erosion of the normative and humanitarian narratives that developed mainly in the period following the end of the Cold War, as well as the disappearance of teleological expectations about a supposed peaceful and post-conflict evolution of the international system.
Realist thesis
In line with the classical and structural realist approach, the thesis put forward here is that international law has never been an effective constraint on states with significant power capabilities. It has functioned, and continues to function, as an instrument subordinate to the distribution of material resources, the structure of the international system, and the strategic interests of the dominant actors. The current phase therefore does not represent a break with the past, but rather a phase of greater transparency in the dynamics of power.
International law in the anarchic system
According to the fundamental assumption of structural realism, the international system is characterized by anarchy, understood not as chaos but as the absence of a sovereign authority superior to states. In this context, international law inevitably takes the form of a set of rules without a centralized coercive mechanism, whose effectiveness depends on the willingness of the most powerful states to respect them or enforce them.
The institutional framework that emerged after 1945, although enriched by multilateral bodies (which sometimes proved weak in certain respects, such as the UN) and universalistic declarations, did not change this basic structure. The Cold War provides empirical confirmation of this approach: despite the existence of a comprehensive international corpus of rules, the period was marked by armed conflicts, proxy wars, coups d’état, and mass violence, with an extremely high human toll.
Nuclear deterrence and systemic stability
The relative containment of direct conflict between the great powers in the second half of the 20th century cannot be explained in normative terms. In line with realist analysis, systemic stability was mainly guaranteed by the balance of nuclear deterrence, which made the cost of total war unacceptable to all actors involved.
The prevention of World War III was therefore not the result of the internalization of shared legal or moral rules, but rather of a rational calculation based on the survival of the state, confirming the primacy of security as a fundamental interest.
Unipolarism and the selective use of norms
With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a unipolar configuration, the instrumental use of international law has become even more evident. In the absence of a balance between comparable powers, the hegemonic actor has been able to exercise a function of selective definition of international legality, resorting to military interventions and practices of indirect influence justified through discursive frameworks of a moral or security nature.
The events following September 11, 2001, represent a turning point in this regard, showing how international law is frequently used as a mechanism for ex post legitimization of power decisions, rather than as a preventive constraint on strategic action.
Normativist illusions and European misalignment
In the European context in particular, a significant part of the political and academic debate has long adopted a normativist reading of the international order, overestimating the capacity of legal institutions to regulate competition between states. This approach has contributed to obscuring the material and conflictual dynamics of the international system, favoring an idealized perception of global governance.
The gradual rebalancing of global power relations and the relative weakening of Western hegemony have made these illusions increasingly unsustainable, producing narrative fractures, discursive reversals, and a growing difficulty in reconciling universalistic rhetoric and geopolitical practice.
Conclusions
From a realist perspective, international law today appears not as an order in crisis, but as what it has always been: a set of rules whose effectiveness is subordinate to the structure of international power, as well as to military, technological, economic, and political force. The reaffirmation of spheres of influence and the reduction of rhetorical mediation in the use of force are not anomalies, but rather the reemergence of systemic dynamics that have never really been overcome.
In this context, it is foreseeable that the transformations of the global order will have significant effects both internationally and on the internal dynamics of advanced Western societies, a process that various sectors of the political and strategic elites now seem to recognize and integrate into their analyses.
