US President Barack Obama has taken a lot of flak for his response to Russia’s swift, and illegal, annexation of Crimea. Among much criticism, his big “contest of ideas” speech, delivered in Brussels last Wednesday, was dismissed as “anemic” by New York Times columnist Roger Cohen and panned by many others. I don’t accept that verdict, but I do think the president could have made a clearer statement of local and global responsibilities in the twenty-first century.

Obama opened by reminding his audience of European youth that this is “a moment of testing for Europe and the United States, and for the international order that we have worked for generations to build”. He went on to say that “we must never take for granted the progress that has been won here in Europe and advanced around the world, because the contest of ideas continues for your generation”. He made explicit reference to “an international system that protects the rights of both nations and people – a United Nations and a Universal Declaration of Human Rights; international law and the means to enforce those laws”. He noted that difficult issues of sovereignty and self-determination “must be addressed through constitutional means and international laws so that majorities cannot simply suppress minorities, and big countries cannot simply bully the small”. So far, so good.

In addressing the current crisis, however, Obama spelt out his position in these terms: “Make no mistake: Neither the United States, nor Europe has any interest in controlling Ukraine. We have sent no troops there. What we want is for the Ukrainian people to make their own decisions, just like other free people around the world.” This is, however, only part of what we want. The missing caveat is that we want it to happen in conformity with the framework of international law and human rights acknowledged in earlier segments of the speech.

The importance of this omission becomes clear in the Myanmar context. For sure we want the Myanmar people to make their own decisions, and every effort must be made to deliver real local control of local affairs. But if they stray onto Mann’s dark side of democracy and engage in practices that violate international law and fall far short of global human rights standards, then we want to be able first to point out those shortfalls and next, if absolutely necessary, to act to address them. Fully establishing these norms throughout the contemporary world is also part of the contest of ideas.