The world's judgement for China

Ever since the creation of the universe, our planet earth faced many catastrophic Pandemic, including the end of the Cretaceous era, about 66 million years ago, resulting in the mass extinction of many animal species around the world, including the large and diverse family of dinosaurs. Many theories were propounded over these mass extinctions of life on earth, but the two main theories are the gradualist and the catastrophic. The catastrophic are of the view that a large celestial object had collided with the Earth at the time that the mass extinctions had occurred, and that mass celestial object is what we know today as the Planet X or Neburio, while the gradualist argued, on the other hand, suggests that the time frame of the process of extinction from a biological viewpoint was very long and that the various species had declined in number over many generations. Although the debate between the gradualists and the catastrophists appears to be still unresolved, both groups of paleontologists do agree that the dating of dinosaur fossils ended in the era of the Chicxulub impact event. Even if the diversity of dinosaur species had been in decline, the gradualists do acknowledge that the worldwide environmental changes caused by that impact could have led to their final extinction.

Not only this but even the Bible describes a worldwide flood covering even the highest mountains of the earth and the construction of a huge boat that transported animals, at least two of a kind of all land animals on the earth. The Qur'an has almost a duplicate story with a similar huge boat that transported animals and a worldwide flood. Besides, two older stories exist in ancient Babylonian epics that describe a huge flood. One is the Epic of Gilgamesh, describing a flood on the Euphrates River. The other is the Epic of Atrahasis, which has a huge flood on the Tigris River. Surprisingly, like those typical stories of Noah, Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010), an eminent biblical scholar and internationally acclaimed author of The Anunnaki Chronicles, which according to him is the oldest civilizations ever known to mankind, with the narrative of the creation of human being, including the destruction of the human being by floods by God, but a handful of people and animal species were saved by Enki, the son of God, by instructing its faithful servant to built a boat to save them from the great Deluge by the flood. Astonishingly, the characters of Enki resembled the Hindu yogic lore of Lord Shiva, or popularly known as Adiyogi, who landed in India some 60 to 70 thousand years ago. Indeed, many religious leaders, scholars, spiritual leaders, anthropologists, and archeologists, etc; have started to take a deep interest in investigating the great Annunaki Chronicles, also known as the Sumerian civilization. The most striking futures of Zecharia Sitchin, is his finding based on existing evidence in different parts of the world, unlike the imaginary and fantasy world.

The next known catastrophic pandemic, occurred in Byzantine Empire, during the reign of the emperor Justinian I (527-565 CE), one of the worst outbreaks of the plague took place, claiming the lives of millions of people. The plague arrived in Constantinople in 542 CE, almost a year after the disease first made its appearance in the outer provinces of the empire. The outbreak continued to sweep throughout the Mediterranean world for another 225 years, finally disappearing in 750 CE. According to Wendy Orient, author of Plague, the disease spread in two directions: north to Alexandria and east to Palestine. This bubonic plague better known as the Black Death killed more than 50 million people or nearly half the entire population. From time immemorial, history has shown that human civilizations were ravaged not only by wars but by natural calamities such as earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricane, storms, tidal waves, and plagues of every kind including the plagues of every 100 years, such as the great plagues of 1720 from Marseille, France, the Cholera of 1820, Calcutta, India, Spanish flu of 1920, and now the most deadly novel Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 from Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. Three historically important epidemics have occurred since 2000: severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-1) also from China, in 2003, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2013, and Ebola virus disease in 2014. The first two were caused by coronaviruses and the third by the Ebola virus. All three were eventually contained using now-familiar public health measures.

Thus any catastrophic or pandemic is not new to our planet earth, but what single out COVID-19, ' the World Health Organization’s shorthand for Coronavirus Disease 2019,(1),” from all other catastrophic pandemic is that the COVID-19 pandemic, for the first time affected international relations and caused enormous diplomatic tensions, as well as resulted in a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding a global ceasefire. The diplomatic relations have been affected much due to the tensions around trade and transport of medicines, diagnostic tests, and hospital equipment for coronavirus disease 2019. Leaders of some countries have accused other countries of not containing the disease effectively and resulting in the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Developing nations like Latin America and Africa cannot find enough materials for testing for coronavirus disease, partly because the United States and countries in Europe are outspending the resources. Amid this battle against an unknown and unseen deadly virus, with thousands of death every day in different parts of the world, members of the international community started fighting against one another with a blame game rather than collectively fighting against the virus. By way of illustrations let me cite a few of them:

Both the Chinese government and the United States started the blame game with 'you did it: No you did it,” just a blame game of twiddle dee twiddle dum in the handling of the pandemic. In Brazil, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of President Jair Bolsonaro, tweeted a message saying: "The global coronavirus pandemic has a name and surname: the Chinese Communist party." Yang Wanming, China's top diplomat in Brazil, retweeted a message that said: "The Bolsonaro family is the great poison of this country."

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that there is "a geopolitical component including a struggle for influence through spinning and the ‘politics of generosity.

While in Germany, because of China's perceived mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic, the largest tabloid newspaper in Germany put together 130 billion euros of damage that they would like for China to pay to Germany. China responded that this act stirs up xenophobia and racism.

Spain, Turkey, and the Netherlands announced that thousands of testing kits and medical masks exported from China are below standard or defective. The Dutch health ministry recalled 600,000 face masks, Spain encountered problems with 60,000 test kits and Turkey had problems with the accuracy of some test kits.

Jean Rottner, the President of France's Regional Council of Grand Est, accused the United States of disrupting face mask deliveries by buying at the last minute. French officials stated that Americans came to the airport tarmac and offered several times the French payment as the shipment was prepared for departure to France.

Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister, order to investigate allegations that medical supplies originally intended for Canada were diverted to the United States.

German politician Andreas Geisel accused the United States of committing "modern piracy" after reports that 200,000 N95 masks meant for German police were diverted during an en-route transfer between airplanes in Thailand to the United States but later changed his statement after he clarified that the mask orders were made through a German firm, not a U.S. firm as earlier stated, and the supply chain issues were under review.

Donald Trump warned India of retaliation if the government does not release hydroxychloroquine medicine to the US. Following this, India lifted the temporary export ban on the drug paving the way for shipping it to the United States.

On 2 April 2020, President Trump halts exports of masks to Canada and Latin America. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that it would be a mistake for both their countries to limit trade of essential goods or services, including medical supplies and professionals, and remarked that this moves in both directions.

Debates over how to respond to the epidemic and its economic fallout have opened up a rift between Northern and Southern European member states, reminiscent of debates over the 2010s European debt crisis. Nine EU countries—Italy, France, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and Luxembourg—called for "corona bonds" (a type of Eurobond) to help their countries to recover from the epidemic, on 25 March.

Japan–South Korea relations worsened as a result of the pandemic. After Japan declared it would start quarantining all arrivals from South Korea, the South Korean government described the move as 'unreasonable, excessive and extremely regrettable”, and that it couldn't "help but question whether Japan has other motives than containing the outbreak".

Russia-Saudi Arabia relations: In response to a dramatic drop in oil consumption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Saudi Arabia attempted to orchestrate a worldwide decrease in oil production to keep prices at a moderate level. However, when Russia refused to reduce oil production, Saudi Arabia triggered an oil price war in March 2020.
Indo-Chinese relations worsened in the Himalayan region which nearly triggered the second Indo-Chinese war, thus Covid-19 deeply affected diplomatic relations, trade, and commerce, political, socio-economic, relations among the community of nations, plunging our planet earth into a great deluge, and this beg the question 'Can China be held liable”? Of course, all these skirmishes among the Community of Nations, reminds us of Rome Emperor Nero, playing the violin while Rome was burning.

The question is: "Can China be held Liable? From day one since the outbreak of Covid-19, China, was blamed for the Covid-19 pandemic, and China was even dragged to the court in various parts of the world including international criminal court, by a lawyer based in Mumbai, India, and by 4th April 2020, All India Bar Association, filed a case against China, before the Human Rights Council, while a class-action suit was filed in the USA seeking US$20 trillion from China for the 'creation and release, accidental or otherwise, of the virus known as COVID-19 by China and its agencies”. The petition claims that China unleashed the Coronavirus as a 'biological weapon in violation of China’s agreements under international law”, such similar cases were filed against China in various parts of the world. Amid this disarray, many conspiracy theories started doing the rounds. The origin of the virus is widely considered to be from Wuhan wet market, Wuhan, China. Some claim that the virus originated from a lab in China and that the pandemic is a Chinese attempt to unleash bioweapon, likewise, many other countries dragged china to the court for the spread of COVID-19, and this begs the questions under what laws china can be held liable, in fact, I have also tweeted that China should be held liable including the WHO Director-General and its officials, only to change my mind after balancing various factors on the issues, but of course, this is my personal views based on the findings of the eminent scientist on virology from different universities such as Dr. David Dowdy, of Johns Hopkins University, Tulane virologist Prof Robert Garry, Ph.D., of Tulane University, Linda Saif. Distinguished University Professor, Food, Animal, and Health Research program Ohio University, and the Department of U.S. intelligence community, and many others including materials from The Lancet, all these researchers analyzed the genome sequence of the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.

Analysis of legal norms

I am of the view that, from a Jurisdictional point of laws, China as a Sovereign Nation, cannot be dragged before the International Court of Justice without its consent, but can we indirectly file a complaint about its nondisclosure of the spread of COVID-19, to do that we need to demonstrate solid evidence like the Trail Smelter case between the United States of America and Canada covering a period of 13 years from 1928 to 1941, in which the United States of America, proved its case against Canada with clear, clinching and convincing evidence, causing crops damages in America by smelting zinc and lead by Canada, and this classic case is now cited in almost every modern environmental dispute as opinion juris. This also triggered the question of whether China violates WHO legal regimes? Under Article 6 of the IHR, four main criteria have been laid down, but ironically the violations of those criteria fall under international soft law regimes. Moreover, China as a member of the United Nations Security Council, it possesses veto power, and that the United Nations can invoke chapter VII of the UN Charter only and only on clear violations of breach of international Peace and Security by China. Yes, in recent years, after the outbreak of Ebola, the United Nations has passed two important Resolutions declaring a pandemic as a breach of international peace, but the text of the two resolutions falls within the soft law regimes. It is also important to note that, the United Nations can ask an army of a Nation to withdraw, but certainly it cannot order the virus to withdraw, which is scientifically proved as a natural pathogen and not a manufactured pathogen from a lab. Under International Law, State obligation towards all or Erga Omnes including Jus Cogens principles applies to China, but in terms of environmental issues and pandemic there are still many rabbits hole and obstacles to address the problems under international legal regimes as demonstrated by the ICJ advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat of Nuclear Weapon case, and the Chernobyl accident causing enormous harm to many European countries, but none of them even attempt to claim compensation from the Soviet Union based on political restraint and legal uncertainty.

This is not to say that everything is alright within China. At the time of writing this article, it is reported that 1.1 million people have died by the coronavirus pandemic, and the world health organization’s efforts to win access and cooperation from China, remains an elusive dream, which crippled the organization’s efforts to conduct independent and transparent investigations into the source of the virus. The organization’s leadership is also severely castigated for negotiating terms that sidelined its experts. The sudden and mysterious death of Vice President of Corporate Communication for Huawei, Joe Kelly, an Irish businessman reminds us of the death of English businessman Neil Heywood, who was murdered with poison by some top Chinese leaders. The cold war between the US and China, in trade, commerce, electronic, technology, and artificial intelligence has reached a stage with serious inside debate in the US, to compete with China with quantum technology, and once the US resort to quantum technology, natural intelligence will pave the way for Artificial Super Intelligence, and Artificial Super Intelligence will be a blow to the growth of spiritual consciousness, but whether Artificial Super Intelligence will prevail over Spiritual consciousness or vice versa is a matter of time for all to be seen in some distant future.

The majority of the world environmental scientist is of the view that the COVID-19 pandemic, has its origins in the inability on the part of the international community to protect our forests, its wildlife and govern land use, which has led to the disappearance of the traditional buffer zones that used to separate humans from animals and their pathogens (UNEP 2016). Constrained by traditional legal structures, international environmental law has been unable to fully adopt an eco-systemic approach that appreciates the interconnections between the health of our planet, biodiversity, and humans. More specifically, if the hypothesis that the virus originated in a live animal market in Wuhan were confirmed, it would be a painful demonstration of the failure of existing legal regimes to protect the wildlife. The possibility that the pangolin might have been an intermediary host turns the spotlight on the challenges facing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and this is the same with the whale, dolphin, penguin, and other endangered spices.

For many years, popular belief prevails that changing our way of life drastically to mitigate climate change would be impossible, and lived under the impression that economic growth would always be prioritized over environmental protection. But the COVID-19 pandemic is a striking note that teaches us that we have destabilized the fragile equilibrium of our planet’s ecosystems and are now facing the direct consequences. The pandemic is nevertheless a chance to remedy this and build new foundations forging ahead with competent and the necessary tools under international laws.

In conclusion, I would like to remind everyone of us what my spiritual guide says, 'If all the worms die, within 12 to 18 months all life will cease to exist on earth, and If all the insects die, within 2 and a half to 4 years all life will cease to exist on earth, but if all human beings got extinct the Planet earth will bloom and flourished to the brim. Time for us, human beings to think and live for a better tomorrow by reminding ourselves of books like Rachel Carson's 'Silent Valley” and 'Our Common Future” as declared in the Brundtland Report.