2026 – Quo Vadis?

From a Western European Perspective

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By Frank Schwalba-Hoth

With Aristotle (384-322 BC) and his assertion “The rule of law is better than that of any individual,” the Magna Carta (1215), and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679), the foundation was laid for replacing the law of the jungle with the rule of law, precisely as protection against the arbitrary rule of individuals.

The growing global population, technological development, and an increasing awareness that life in a globalized world also requires global solutions, led to the founding of the Red Cross in 1863 (now with 191 member states) to protect the lives and dignity of victims of wars and internal conflicts in a neutral and independent way.

This first globally binding legal framework was followed in 1920 by the founding of the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations (UN) established in 1945. Its purpose was to adopt international legal norms and obligate states to conduct themselves in accordance with this international law. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also founded in 1945, has the jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes between states.

The states of the global community did not stop there; they addressed further areas and negotiated jointly. Additional global treaties, including those on disarmament, nuclear weapons, biodiversity, economics, finance, culture, climate, and human rights, created a dense network of binding rules to guarantee that – unlike in the centuries and millennia before – the stronger does not always prevail at the expense of others. These treaties and conventions are regularly evaluated by the member states in so-called COPs (Conference of the Parties) and adapted to changing realities.

Europe went even further in its efforts: to overcome the destructive international past of its member states, something unique in human history was created with the European Union – sovereign rights are jointly decided upon and implemented based on shared values.

Then, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002 to prosecute individuals for genocide, aggression, and war crimes, a new era of a civilized and rules-based future seemed assured.

Unfortunately, two points were overlooked: First, the USA has a long tradition of refusing to submit to international legal norms and has therefore prevented many of these treaties from applying to the USA. Second, in recent years, anti-democratic tendencies have gained increasing influence around the globe – so that not only authoritarian regimes believed they could increasingly disregard international legal norms.

The consequence: The behavior initiated by the USA in Iraq in 2003 and by Russia in Ukraine has now been continued in Venezuela. In order to gain access to the world’s largest oil reserves, the Venezuelan president was kidnapped on January 3rd of this year under false pretenses, imprisoned in the USA, and it was announced that the country would be placed under US administration. To maintain a semblance of the rule of law, arguments are being made based on US national legal norms. Since they assume that most international rules do not apply to the US, the arrest of a suspected drug criminal can take place even outside US borders.

In order to maintain a semblance of the rule of law, US national legal norms are being invoked. January 3, 2026, will therefore go down in history as the day a world power with a formal democratic structure declares our civilization dead and announces further “territorial expansions” on the horizon: Greenland, Colombia, Panama, Canada, Gaza…

Historians might think of the end of the 1930s, literary scholars of the novel “1984.” Politically engaged people must ask themselves whether their mere observation should not transform into active, democratically engaged behavior.

In the second half of the last century, we seemed to have successfully tamed the demons of barbarism and the law of the jungle through binding international legal norms. Should (and can) we accept that this progress is now turning into a “back to the past” – with the difference that our technological development has given us a wide range of weapons and the like, which carry the potential for civilizational self-destruction?

PS: If the international community of states wants to live up to its responsibilities, someone should be found who will follow South Africa’s Gaza example. Specifically, this would mean that the US president and his Delta Force would have to answer for their military actions in the ICC member state of Venezuela before the International Criminal Court. The main charges would then be violations of the Charter of the UN, an international organisation of which the US is a member. The killing of 32 Cuban bodyguards of the Venezuelan president could also be up for trial.