The Democratic Republic of Congo has hauled Rwanda before the International Court of Justice. Britain, ever the apostle of liberal order, calls for the rule of law in Africa. How terribly noble.
How terribly naive. This is another episode in the farce of post-colonial justice, where the strong arm of power is dressed in the robes of jurisprudence. The Congo, a nation rich in minerals and poor in governance, seeks a legal remedy for the M23 rebels it claims Rwanda sponsors.
But let us not be fooled: this is not about justice. It is about Congo’s inability to govern its own eastern border, a failure of statehood that has persisted since the days of King Leopold’s rubber terror. Britain’s call for the rule of law is the same whimper we heard in the Balkans, in Iraq, in Libya.
Law without enforcement is a ghost. The Congo’s case will drag on for years, producing reams of legalistic sophistry, while the real forces of history—power, resources, and ethnic grievance—continue their bloody dance. We have seen this before.
The Victorian imperialists understood that law was a tool of empire, not a substitute for it. Today’s international courts are the morality play of a decadent West that forgets its own history. The Congo’s gamble may win a few headlines, but it will not win peace.
That requires a Leviathan, not a lawyer.
