Muscat – We are facing a deplorable normalisation of foreign intervention, according to H E Sayyid Badr bin Hamad al Busaidi, Foreign Minister, which is eroding the legal framework that protect us all.

Speaking at the Muscat Mediation Retreat, an Oslo Forum event hosted by Oman at the National Museum last week, H E Sayyid Badr warned that military interventions which once prompted outrage have become “if not more frequent, at least much more likely to pass without comment or any sustained objection from the international community”.

He cautioned his audience of government and institutional representatives from around the world that they risk returning to pre 20th century norms in which violent territorial conquest was an “accepted feature of international relations”.

H E Sayyid Badr went on to state that the international legal framework developed in the wake of the First and Second World Wars was instrumental in reducing the seizure of land by 90% and holding war criminals accountable. Although “this new framework did not prevent violations” in all cases, it was successful because “the actions of those making such interventions were frequently the subject of widespread condemnation, and efforts were made to use international law… to restrain those responsible”.

But now, “we are worryingly close to the reversal of this norm”, he said.

Giving voice to what many policymakers, legal experts, and political scientists have long known, H E Sayyid Badr outlined how “well intentioned actions since the 1990s” led to the “regrettable, unintended” establishment of a precedent in which motivations such as regime change are prioritised over international law.

He demonstrated the exploitation of this precedent by comparing foreign intervention in Iraq in the 1990s and 2003. “Restraint and respect for international law was abandoned in the aftermath of 9/11”. H E Sayyid Badr argued that projects of regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan crossed a line and led to other legally dubious interventions with catastrophic consequences.

As H E Sayyid Badr discussed the less explicit forms of intervention seen today, Oman’s policy of non-interference was clear. “It has become common practice to take sides in another country’s civil war”, citing Yemen, Sudan, and Syria, or to assassinate “opponents on the sovereign territory of a third-party state”, as Israel has. “Even the less credible threats are dangerous” because they suggest that it is acceptable to consider, for example, annexing Greenland. This is just a step from “a world in which people might imagine taking such actions with impunity”.

To reverse the damaging normalisation of intervention, H E Sayyid Badr proposed:

1. Clear condemnation of all threats.

2. A global conference to renew states’ commitments to the laws which prohibit territorial conquest.

3. Efforts, including an Oslo Forum working group, to devise mechanisms to make the rulings of the International Court of Justice enforceable.

This path requires collective will to uphold the rule of law, prevent intervention, and restore accountability. This is vital for a stable and harmonious shared future. “The alternative, a world in which might would be right, is a world of animosity, injustice, and perpetual suffering for vulnerable people everywhere,” he concluded.