Compliance with the law in the state is simply a derivative of its forced nature. It's different in an global environment. It is of a polyarchical nature and does not have the only ruler in it, capable not only of imposing standards but besides of enforcing listening from sovereign states.
Each individual State shall stay the eventual arbitrator in the performance of its global obligations. Hence, the scope and strength of global legal standards always depend on the goodwill of states, especially the powers. The degree of durability and variability of global legal standards yet determines the degree of compliance of more countries, including major powers, on circumstantial practices and on preferred values in common relations (opinio iuris). It is their interests, seen in the common action of others, that prompt governments to regulate many matters through tendering and compromise.
Since ancient times it has been accepted internationally that the basis of commitments (a warrant of the integrity of the parties to each other) is the rule of good religion (bona fides) and trust and credibility (pacta sunt servanda). In particular, the second expression – agreements must be kept, agreements are sacred – became synonymous with the most crucial standard of coexistence of civilized nations. These principles supply the basis for believing that contracts are made with the best intentions. This involves the will of equal, equal treatment and common trust to comply with the agreement.
In contrast to intra-state life, in which power dictates behaviour towards all actors and enforces their listen, in global relations compliance with standards created and addressed to each another by the states themselves is alternatively a consequence of the belief that the law aims to coordinate actions that limit chaos and anarchy. Therefore, willful and reasonable factors play specified an crucial role. Knowing the meaning of the law is the basis for relying on each other.
According to the realistic planet view, it should be stressed that the rules of global law have the power to enforce only if the contracting entities comply voluntarily with them. In view of the selfish and selfish nature of the states, it can surely be concluded that there is much wishfulness and idealism in specified assumptions. Due to the hierarchical arrangement of forces in the global system, compliance with the law is simply a derivative of superiorities over the weaker. Powers are allowed more. There are besides no means of enforcing their listening to global commitments. The fight against “insubordination” of large powers against the existing standards with various restrictions or sanctions is doomed to failure.
Rebus sic stantibus
States have a strong temptation to justify the impermanence of their obligations by referring to a fundamental change in circumstances. This is treated by the rebus sic stantibus clause (since things have taken a turn) which reconciles the principles of good religion and holiness of contracts. It represents an extraordinary change in relations with the entities of the Treaty and allows for the amendment of the provisions of the Agreement as a consequence of the unfortunate turnover of cases. Importantly, changes in circumstances cannot be the consequence of the action of the State itself, citing this clause.
All these conditions of binding global law are not adequate to constitute a "rigid corset" of non-relativisation standards. global relations are besides volatile, complex and unpredictable to be subject to full regulatory regulation. Therefore, there is simply a widespread belief that rigid and omnipotent agreements would be besides dangerous and detached from reality. A standard regulation of each sector of global activity would limit the freedom and initiative of countries. Due to the abundance and diversity of facts, their effort to regulate proved unrealistic.
Paradoxically, the period of the “cold war” was conducive to the conclusion of various agreements that allowed to stabilise the relation between the top protagonists. Many of the rules of conduct were not of the nature of legal standards, but were conducive to the improvement of an atmosphere of dialog and the expression of the will to negotiate. These included, for example, ‘silent agreements’ to recognise real zones of influence of large powers. This was due to abstinence from direct or indirect intervention in the home affairs of the opposing group. This was in line with the rule of restraint and self-limitation in order not to provoke unnecessary tensions.
One of the most crucial “safers” was to reduce the membership of the “nuclear club” and not usage atomic weapons assets in the current competition as leverage. This regulation is inactive respected by atomic powers, although in the context of the war in Ukraine there are no shortages of lunatics in favour of raising the hazard of utilizing these weapons in the battlefield.
The global Court of Justice, in 1974 on French atomic tests, concluded that France is bound by unilateral obligations to cease atomic weapons trials. It was considered that the same rule as the pacta sunt servanda rule in the Treaty law was based on good faith, as is the binding nature of unilateral declarations. As you can see, the rule of good religion has been extended beyond the conventional scope of the law of the treaties, thus creating a fresh rule of liabilities sunt servandae (all obligations must be respected).
The form of the articulation of global standards is not decisive for their compliance. Even large peace treaties or agreements on relationship and good neighbourliness are not respected “for centuries” due to the fact that expectations about their binding power are constantly changing. They are so not a origin of axioms, but a flexible instrument, adapted by the States to the desired objectives. This makes compliance with global law relative.
Naïveness of Karol Nawrocki
Against this background, it is comic to discover that a state, especially a war - waged power, is not a reliable associate in global legal trade due to the fact that it does not keep its contracts. With specified a “eureka” the president of Poland spoke, stating during his visit to Prague in November 2025 that “Russia does not keep its contracts”. This allegation served to fuel anti-Russian hysteria in the context of peace talks against which it is good to show opposition, as most European leaders do. However, there has been greater confusion among those observers who see the cynical violation of global obligations by states on all sides of the confrontation.
Today, it is already known that there would not have been an open war in Ukraine if the parties to the agreements signed in Minsk on 5 September 2014 and 12 February 2015 on ending the conflict in east Ukraine (Tripartite Contact Group with participation of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, and then the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine in the alleged Normandy format) had implemented the established protocol commitments. Not without reason, the confession of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the tide of sincerity in the autumn of 2022, that the Minsk agreements were truly a "trying to give Ukraine time", so that she could better prepare for the war with Russia, brought all players into embarrassment. So, are these negotiations and agreements conducted in bad religion (mal fides) from the beginning? Or was it a “special operation” to deceive Russia and Putin due to bad intentions?
Everyone who is simply a bit oriented in universal past knows perfectly well that from the earliest times large powers respected so long various agreements as long as they were useful. global law has always been a function of interest and strength. Its relativisation is simply a constant feature of global relations. This is best illustrated by the English traditions, starting at least with Henry VIII. Governments in London have been faithful for centuries to the rule that their country has neither permanent enemies nor permanent friends, but only eternal interests. This conviction determines Albion's "perfidious" approach to the transientity of global treaties.
Similarly, the French are convinced that changing circumstances force states to review global obligations. This position was best expressed by General Charles de Gaulle, president of the V Republic from 1958 to 1969, erstwhile disappointed in the return of the RFN towards the United States, six months after the conclusion of the 1963 Elysian Treaty, he was to utter with sarcasm the memorable words that "the treatises are like virgins and roses, they only last as long as they last." By withdrawing France from NATO's military structures in 1966, he stressed the request to adapt the Treaty commitments to the fresh situation. If that were not the case, the treaties would lose value by becoming simply useless archival material.
Smaller ones can be less
One crucial thing is this experience: global commitments must be dynamically reinterpreted in the light of changing geopolitical realities. This is demonstrated by the attitude of the 2 superpowers of the last eighty years since the end of planet War II, i.e. the US and the USSR/Russia. Of the powers, they have the most violations and revisions of global law, which have serious effects on global governance. It can even be concluded that they share the belief that the pacta sunt servanda rule applies primarily to smaller countries. They must number on the will of the strongest, as it is up to them to defend the position quo, guarantees of peace and global security.
The large powers of notoriously let themselves to violate and circumvent the provisions of the most crucial act of global law, the United Nations Charter. Infringements relate primarily to Article 2.4 thereof, relating to the prohibition of the usage of force or the threat of its use, but in cases of self-defense. The vast number of armed conflicts since the end of planet War II, frequently involving permanent members of the safety Council liable for global peace and security, has made this body powerless and impotent.
Equally often, large powers destabilise the strategy of disarmament agreements, allowing themselves to unilaterally retreat from existing agreements. Thus, for example, the US withdrew from the Treaty on the regulation of rocket defence Systems (ABM) in June 2002, breaking the 30-year agreement of 1972. This was justified by the request to build a national rocket defence strategy in the face of the alleged atomic threat from the "homicidal" states.
The United States besides unilaterally withdrew from the 1987 INF Treaty in 2019 (on short and medium-range rockets). The origin of this act was seen by Washington in Russia's many years of breaking it. In response, Moscow besides withdrew from these disarmament agreements. In fact, each organization has long sought an excuse to make a commitment. In the meantime, technologies have been developed to introduce fresh types of rocket systems into weapons.
In the case of the United States, we have been seeing fluctuations in positions towards the treaties for a long time due to changes in the presidential administration. For example, the destiny of the global agreement for the control of Iran's atomic programme (JCPOA) concluded during Barack Obama's time in 2015 and challenged by another president Donald Trump in 2018. For the current presidency, the future of possible fresh agreements with Iran remains uncertain and is simply a origin in destabilising global relations.
Despite these evident “action returns”, politicians of many countries live with the illusion that erstwhile the agreements, especially those establishing alliances, will last forever. An highly interesting explanation of the existence of the North Atlantic alliance is in this context. It was established in 1949 to strengthen the global power position of the United States, giving European allies a sense of safety against russian aggression. However, it turned out to be an alliance to defend Europeans from being active in US conflicts outside the Atlantic. It was France that expressed consistent opposition to its inclusion in non-war. The situation changed after the “cold war” erstwhile the alliance sought for itself justifications for action outside the area of the casus foederis (out of area).
Big Review Time
Today's situation matures for a critical revision of the Treaty principles. To a large extent, against the background of Western commitment to the war in Ukraine, immense dissonances are emerging between the US and European allies in the knowing of a community of strategical interests. In front of our eyes, the U.S.'s "return" of allied obligations is happening, and this could mean the dissolution of NATO and the entanglement of European powers in a catastrophic conflict with Russia. It would be a paradox if the US became a strategical threat to Europeans themselves.
Its usefulness and cost-effectiveness depend on the will of the erstwhile leader of the alliance. The erosion of the US's commitment to Europe can mean the end of Atlanism as a binder of the ideological West. In the argument of parts of the Republican elite in the US, the North Atlantic alliance became a "relict of the Cold War", and its genesis was linked to the necessity to argue russian expansion. The first grounds for maintaining obsolete liabilities have now disappeared. All the more so, the avoidance of permanent “contribution” into alliances is at the heart of the “isolationist” doctrine of U.S. abroad policy from the times of the Founding Fathers.
Another threat of relativisation of Western rules is the effort to circumvent the Treaty requirements for Ukraine. As a consequence of the hysterical search for a warrant of "west" for this country after the war, France and Germany, and others under force from Brussels, are presently building a peace plan to accelerate its accession to the European Union in 2027. Although this is not possible in the current legal state (the Treaty on European Union does not supply for an emergency or abbreviated procedure), contrary to collective and peculiar interests (including Poland), a intellectual and propaganda climate of acknowledgment is created for arbitrary violation of the existing rules. This would mean the end of the European Union as we know it. It is simply a pity that there is no serious reflection in Poland between the rulers and the opposition, to which specified legal disinvolvement can lead.
The legal mechanisms of the European Union, although in explanation they are based on equality of all members, frequently show asymmetry in enforcement. Legal hypocrisy is manifested in the different treatment of the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ States of the Union and in a selective approach to their own values. An example of the usage of "defensive to the regulation of law" against Poland under the regulation of the United Right and against Hungary Viktor Orbán shows how, instrumentally, the European Commission uses "politicisation" of procedures (conditional mechanism), requiring governments to act in accordance with the "Brussels line".
The manifestations of another infringements of Union law are the legalisation of financial dumping within the single marketplace by allowing Germany and France to dominate public aid and by violating the principles of budgetary discipline by those countries. erstwhile smaller countries had akin problems, drastic austerity programs were imposed on them.
The trap of EU hypocrisy is besides seen in managing the migration crisis at borders. erstwhile criticising 3rd countries for human rights violations, EU authorities tolerate or legitimise actions specified as pushing migrants (push-back) at the borders of Poland, Lithuania or Greece erstwhile it serves the safety of the Union. These are only any of the reasons for the erosion of trust in the EU institutions, and worst of all, the increasing disappointment and sense of injustice in many countries, which see in the EU strategy sources of threats to fresh imperial dependence.
The top gap between compliance with global law, in peculiar humanitarian law and political practice, concerns a gross difference in the approach to war in Ukraine compared to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip. Clearly, “civil life in Ukraine has a different value than in Gaza” (Josep Borrell). If France, Italy, Greece or Belgium let ships carrying arms to Israel to call at their ports, they shall violate the association and free trade agreement between the European Union and Israel, as its Article 2 clearly indicates the request to suspend it if 1 of the parties violates human rights. How many shameful examples of genocide are needed to make Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip part of these laws?
Poland has declared itself a defender of global law, but in practice it is not consistent in fulfilling global obligations. The current practice of Polish governments indicates the application of double standards and instrumentalisation of the law according to the current situation. This is evident, for example, in the ideological approach to the competences of the global Criminal Court (the unequal treatment of guilty human rights violations) and in any ambivality towards the EU treaties, the European Convention on Human Rights and others.
Seeing the European Union's authorities grow their competence by circumventing the Treaty provisions, governments in Poland have a work to defend their sovereign right to reinterpret their obligations and, if necessary, to retreat from them if they cease to service the interests of the state. In this context, more and more people in Poland see that the officially decreed absoluteisation of EU law becomes harmful to their own interests.
Prof. Stanisław Bielen
Think Poland, No. 51-52 (21-28.12.2025)
