Europe live legal updates: Trump, the Nobel Prize and Greenland

The disclosure of an extraordinary text message exchange between Donald Trump and the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, has introduced a deeply unsettling new dimension to the accelerating crisis over Greenland. According to the account now in the public domain, the president of the United States expressed that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of peace” because he did not receive the Nobel peace prize, and he again declined to rule out seizing Greenland by force. This revelation, combined with his renewed pledge to impose tariffs on allied states and his assertion that Norway was responsible for denying him the prize, represents not merely erratic rhetoric, but a convergence of personal grievance, coercive economic policy and explicit threats to territorial integrity that places the United States in direct tension with the core legal foundations of the modern international system.

Greenland is a largely self governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, whose sovereignty is universally recognised. Trump has in recent weeks stated that the United States would take control of the island “one way or the other” and declared publicly that “now it is time, and it will be done”. On Monday he told NBC News that he would “100%” proceed with tariffs on allied countries, and accused Norway of responsibility for his failure to secure the Nobel peace prize, stating that Norway “totally controls it despite what they say”.

In law, almost every element of this posture is problematic to the point of being incendiary.

The most serious is the open suggestion that Greenland could be taken by force. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter imposes a categorical prohibition on the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. This rule is not merely treaty based but is widely regarded as a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is permitted. The International Court of Justice has repeatedly affirmed that territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force is illegal and cannot be recognised as lawful by other states.

Trump’s statement that the United States might take Greenland “one way or the other” constitutes, in legal terms, a prima facie threat of force. Even if no military action follows, such language alone can engage international responsibility. Under the law of state responsibility, articulated in the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, a state commits an internationally wrongful act when its conduct is attributable to it and constitutes a breach of an international obligation. A public declaration by a head of state threatening territorial seizure satisfies both conditions.

No doctrine of strategic necessity, national interest or global security can lawfully justify such conduct. Since 1945, the international legal order has been constructed precisely to prevent powerful states from asserting security needs as grounds for annexation. To do so would revive the discredited logic that underpinned aggressive expansion in the early twentieth century.

Equally grave is the suggestion that economic coercion will be used in tandem with territorial demands. Trump confirmed he would proceed with tariffs against allies and has explicitly linked economic punishment to his Greenland ambitions in previous statements. Under the law of treaties, and particularly the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, agreements procured by the threat or use of force are void. While the United States is not formally a party to the Convention, the principle is accepted as customary international law.

Moreover, the use of punitive tariffs for political coercion risks breaching obligations under the World Trade Organization framework, including the Most Favoured Nation principle and the prohibition on discriminatory trade measures unrelated to legitimate trade policy objectives. Invoking national security exceptions under Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade would almost certainly be contested, and recent WTO jurisprudence has indicated that such claims are not beyond legal scrutiny.

The involvement of Norway through the Nobel peace prize narrative introduces another layer of legal and diplomatic distortion. Trump has alleged that Norway “controls” the prize. This is factually incorrect. The Nobel peace prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a five member private body whose members are appointed by the Norwegian parliament but whose decisions are independent of the government. This institutional separation is deliberate and fundamental. The Norwegian state has no legal authority over the selection of laureates.

To attribute personal grievance over a private and independent award process to the Norwegian government is therefore not only inaccurate but legally incoherent. It conflates a non governmental body with a sovereign state, and then treats that conflation as justification for punitive state action.

In international law, reprisals and countermeasures must satisfy strict conditions. They must respond to a prior internationally wrongful act, be proportionate, and aim to induce compliance with international obligations. Norway’s lack of involvement in Nobel decisions means there is no wrongful act to which any lawful countermeasure could attach. Tariffs or other hostile measures based on this grievance would thus lack any recognised legal foundation.

More troubling still is the apparent link Trump draws between his failure to receive the Nobel peace prize and his willingness to abandon a commitment to peace. The implication that adherence to peaceful conduct is conditional upon personal recognition stands in stark opposition to the legal duties imposed on states under the UN Charter. The obligation to settle disputes by peaceful means under Article 2(3) and Article 33 is unconditional. It is not contingent on awards, prestige or domestic political advantage.

From a constitutional perspective within the United States, the situation is also precarious. While the president holds significant authority in foreign affairs, the power to declare war resides with Congress. Any military action to seize Greenland would be unconstitutional without congressional authorisation, in addition to being unlawful internationally. Even preparatory steps could trigger domestic legal challenges and impeachment proceedings if deemed to constitute abuse of power or violation of treaty obligations.

The broader strategic implications are severe. Denmark is a NATO member. Norway is a NATO member. Any use of force against Danish territory would engage the collective defence framework of the North Atlantic Treaty. Article 5 would in principle be triggered by an armed attack against a member state. The notion that the United States could become the aggressor against its own allies would shatter the legal and political foundations of the alliance.

It would also place European states in an unprecedented position, forced to choose between legal obligations under NATO and the reality of US military power. Such a scenario would represent the most profound crisis in the history of the alliance.

Greenland itself has legal rights that cannot be ignored. Its population holds the right to self determination under international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Any transfer of sovereignty would require the freely expressed will of its people. Threats of force or economic strangulation directed at Denmark would taint any subsequent process and render its outcome legally void.

The disclosure of Trump’s private message to the Norwegian prime minister, like the earlier publication of Emmanuel Macron’s message, also erodes the principle of confidentiality in diplomacy. International relations rely on private communication to prevent escalation and manage conflict. The conversion of such exchanges into public political weapons undermines trust and increases the likelihood of miscalculation.

Taken together, these developments point to a profound departure from the rule based international order. The combination of personal grievance, economic coercion and open threats of territorial seizure evokes a pre 1945 model of power politics that international law was designed to extinguish.

This is no longer merely a dispute over an Arctic island. It is a stress test of whether the fundamental legal prohibitions on conquest, coercion and arbitrary punishment of states retain any practical force when challenged by the head of the world’s most powerful country.

If threats to seize Greenland by force, justified by strategic interest and personal resentment over a private peace prize, are allowed to stand unchallenged, the consequences will reverberate far beyond the Arctic. They will redefine what sovereignty means in the twenty first century, and whether international law remains a binding framework or is reduced to an optional restraint observed only by the weak.

The world is therefore not witnessing an eccentric diplomatic episode. It is watching a direct confrontation between personal power politics and the legal architecture that has governed international relations for more than seventy years. The outcome will shape not only the future of Greenland, but the credibility of international law itself.