MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. Western countries first moved to replace international laws when they began to bomb Yugoslavia in 1999, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview for NTV’s "U-Turn Above the Atlantic" documentary.
"All western permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, the United Kingdom and France - vigorously called for using force," said Lavrov, who was Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations back in 1999. "Then non-permanent members Canada and the Netherlands supported them. Russia, China and then non-permanent members Argentina and Brazil most actively opposed those plans and demands to use force," he added.
However, in Lavrov’s words, "there was no stopping the Americans." "They had long made a decision and sought the UN Security Council’s blessing. But when it became clear that it wouldn’t work, they carried out a unilateral aggression against a sovereign state, violating the UN Charter and OSCE principles and disrupting the entire world order established following World War II," the Russian top diplomat emphasized.
"It continues to this day. It was then when the double-talk began and the Americans moved to destroy international law and replace it with some rules-based order," he went on to say. "Now, Western countries tend to use the term ‘rules-based order’ instead of calling for compliance with international law," he noted.
"The difference is clear. International law came to be as a result of consensus-based negotiations, while rules are invented by the West that demands everyone follow them," Lavrov said, adding that "it all began 20 years ago.".