Libya catastrophe sets precedent for new type of intervention by force – Russian Constitutional Court Head

(Interfax – ST. PETERSBURG, May 17, 2013) The state catastrophe in Libya shows that lawful methods of resolving the issue have been substituted for use of force and this creates chaos in most parts of Africa, Russian Constitutional Court Chairman Valery Zorkin said.

“Researchers and experts acknowledge a very dangerous destruction of the international legal system, more and more frequent and active attempts of big states as well as formal and informal state coalitions to substitute functions of the UN and UN Security Council with their decisions as well as attempts to impose on sovereign countries internal economic and social policies, which directly contradict the constitutions of these countries,” Zorkin said on Wednesday when speaking at the Third St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.

Zorkin said that the attempt to substitute legal methods of resolving issues with intervention by force was evident in the modern world.

“I will dare to say that the state catastrophe in Libya, artificially created by one of such informal coalitions, is still not recognized and evaluated by the international community from the legal point of view. Neither the importance of this catastrophe as a long-term chaos generator in Libya itself and in the huge region of Africa nor the importance of the campaign against Libya for the global world as an illegal precedent of a new type of interference by force in national states have been grasped completely,” Zorkin said.

Zorkin said that the events in Libya, Egypt, Syria and events related to “the expropriation of money of bank depositors in Cyprus” were “not simply signs of the new epoch of the global turbulence about which Mrs. Condoleezza Rice spoke, this is a virtual claim at utter denial of those humanity principles, which the modern era has brought and which we got used to considering as integral conditions of our existence as the air we breathe.” Zorkin said he referred to such values as human rights, supremacy of law and constitutional legitimacy.