>Small countries lack agency and international law is being repurposed as toilet paper right now.

It's not just "right now", it's how it has always been. International law was never a thing to begin with. It was just a sham created by the world powers after WW2 nuremberg trials, so they could add a veneer of legitimacy when they enforce their will over weaker countries in disputes, never the other way around. It was still just "history is written by the victor" business as usual. Otherwise they would have prosecuted leadership of France, Belgium and UK for their crimes in their colonies if there was any actual objective justice in international law.

As a smaller country you never had a say in your sovereignty if you didn't have nukes or the blessing of powerful allies to enforce laws for you via their more powerful militaries. "Might is right" is the undefeated fact that has been true for 10k years of human history, and will still be true 10k years in our future.

>Your view is demonstrably proven wrong.

Then demonstrate and prove it wrong.

>As for cost of living, name a developed country, big or small, where things are going swimmingly on that front and I’ll name you ten others where it didn’t, big and small.

So you agree with me that CoL is fucked, just like I originally said. Just because it's fucked in other countries, doesn't invalidate my statement.