«The cruel terrorist attack committed in Moscow calls for the strongest condemnation. Horror and execration must accompany violence against all innocent civilian victims. Fighting all forms of terrorism must be a common commitment for the entire international community." The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, expressed himself with these words regarding the events in Moscow, where a terrorist attack, a few days ago, hit the Russian capital, in his neighborhood of Krasnogorsk, outside and inside the largest concert hall largest in the city, that of the Crocus City Hall, where a group of armed men, dressed in camouflage, broke in and opened fire on the spectators who were waiting for the performance of the rock band Picnic.

The death toll, as provided by the Russian internal security services, appeared high from the start. The attack was claimed by ISIS a few hours after it occurred and the US had already warned Russia of the risk of attacks by ISIS.

It would seem to be a new and terrible test for global geopolitical structures, a challenge to the liberal international order aimed at creating disorder for the creation of an unprecedented global hegemony and/or in any case, to question the current one. In fact, if we consider it carefully, in recent years, starting from the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in a more evident way, the international order, i.e. that set of principles governing relations between states, seems to have been put into discussion often.

The questions seem to arise numerous and not always easy to resolve since events of such terrible importance, such as the one which recently hit the Russian capital, could also prove suitable to influence in some way the outcomes of historical processes by going to undermine the foundations of the principles of justice and equity that underlie the complex system of relations between states.

The prohibition of the use of armed force and/or the very threat of the use of force represents an indisputable principle of international law whose violation provides for the imposition of the sanctions provided for by international law itself. The latest events, however, seem to have called into question the collective security network that the international community, despite all its subjective complexity, had contributed to creating and developing with the aim of countering anyone who had attempted to question the peace world. Meanwhile, because the entire International Community rests its foundations on the principle, which still exists today, of sovereign equality between States. Therefore, because, consequently, at the moment, no State could, and in fact cannot, for this very reason, advance aims of sovereignty over any other State if the latter does not expressly consent to it, and the hypothesis is obviously only argumentative. Finally, because the current historical moment, already so difficult to manage, would probably require Governments to devise new relational dynamics in line with the changes taking place as the so-called globalisation, for several years, has probably induced transformations requiring new paradigms organizational. Moreover, the United Nations Charter itself has placed, from the beginning, among its objectives, the fundamental one of "maintaining international peace and security", even adopting "effective collective measures to prevent and remove threats to peace and to repress acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and achieve by peaceful means, and in accordance with the principles of justice and international law, the settlement or resolution of international disputes or situations which could lead to a breach of the peace".

At present, however, the old order formed after the Second World War seems to have broken down, but still, the bud of a new world order which, in fact, does not yet seem to have established itself, does not appear to be visible on the horizon. Probably, the world, in its entirety, is going through a moment of continuously evolving transition in which Governments seem to be called to redefine their roles to re-establish new and more effective balances suitable for responding to contingent needs which, in truth, would seem other than those before the pandemic and before the conflict. Change is part of existence, and whoever manages to interpret it could make the difference.

The transition from the old to the new order would seem to impose, and quickly, immediate solutions to still unresolved questions relating to the apparent new trends in international politics, which questions, in a constantly evolving scenario, would instead seem to give rise to further perplexities.

The European Union, in order to be able to consider itself as a leading actor, should probably rediscover its primordial federalist design which can act as a pacesetter and example for the creation of an unprecedented political language, which, in turn, drawing inspiration from the federalist design territorial, so to speak, lay the foundations for a universal federal model perfectly suited to avoiding dangerous escalations of force. The need for a Europe of the Peoples and for the Peoples pre-ordained in a great federal plan that is capable of rewriting a truly peaceful world order aimed at satisfying the pressing needs of cooperative solidarity seems to be emerging.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro

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