{"id":314053,"date":"2026-03-09T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=314053"},"modified":"2026-03-08T07:20:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T07:20:36","slug":"international-law-needs-international-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/03\/international-law-needs-international-enforcement\/","title":{"rendered":"International Law Needs International Enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

7 Mar 2026 – <\/em>Donald Trump\u2019s war of choice in the Middle East is but the latest indication that the system of international law\u2015which provides guidelines for the behavior of nations in world affairs\u2015is crumbling.<\/p>\n

In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after thousands of years of violent international conflict, efforts to establish global norms for nations in connection with war, diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights accelerated.\u00a0 These efforts resulted in the founding of the United Nations (which develops, codifies, and enforces international law), the International Court of Justice<\/a> (which settles legal disputes among nations and provides advisory opinions on legal questions), and the International Criminal Court<\/a> (which investigates and tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community).<\/p>\n

Of course, the current U.S. military attack on Iran flies in the face of the UN Charter, which, in Article 2<\/a>, states that \u201call Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means\u201d and that they \u201cshall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.\u201d\u00a0 Furthermore, contemptuous of the United Nations<\/a>, Trump has withdrawn the U.S. government<\/a> from dozens of UN agencies and blocked the U.S. government\u2019s payment<\/a> of billions of dollars in mandatory dues to the world organization.<\/p>\n

Other nations are also clearly out of line with international law.\u00a0 The Russian government\u2019s over four years of war and occupation of Ukrainian territory are flagrant violations of the UN Charter, as attested to by a ruling of the International Court of Justice<\/a> and numerous overwhelming condemnations<\/a> by the UN General Assembly.\u00a0 The Israeli government is also a prominent transgressor, having joined the U.S. military assault on Iran and conducted an illegal occupation of conquered Palestinian territory <\/a>for decades while violating international humanitarian law<\/a> in its treatment of the civilian population.<\/p>\n

Disgusted by the ability of these and other nations to act with impunity, Majed al-Ansari, Qatar\u2019s foreign policy advisor, remarked bitterly in 2025<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cWe are moving into a system where anybody can do whatever they like. . . .\u00a0 As long as you have the ability to wreak havoc, you can do it because no one will hold you accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

This lack of accountability is striking.\u00a0 Within nations, there is usually effective enforcement of law.\u00a0 But, on the global level, law enforcement is weak, indeed. \u00a0When the International Criminal Court announced warrants for the arrests of Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes, a former Russian president threatened the judges with a hypersonic missile attack<\/a> and the U.S. government imposed heavy sanctions on the judges<\/a>.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Putin and Netanyahu remain at large.<\/p>\n

Scornful of international law, some national officials openly champion a return to the traditional might-makes-right conduct of international affairs.\u00a0 \u201cYou can talk all you want about international niceties,\u201d sneered Stephen Miller<\/a>, Trump\u2019s influential White House aide, \u201cbut we live in . . . the real world . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by power.\u00a0 These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, officials of nations that are militarily powerful find a power politics approach appealing, as do people with militarist and nationalist views.\u00a0 Trump recently announced<\/a>: \u201cI don\u2019t need international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conversely, officials of less powerful nations are dismayed by the resurrection of a might-makes-right standard, as are people with peace-oriented and internationalist views.\u00a0 They argue that what the world needs is not the abandonment of international law, but its more effective enforcement.\u00a0 Furthermore, they contend that a return to great power imperialism in a world bristling with modern weapons, including nuclear weapons, is a recipe for catastrophe.<\/p>\n

But if effective enforcement of international law is preferable to a power politics approach to world affairs, can that effective enforcement be attained?<\/p>\n

There are certainly feasible, small-scale actions along these lines that could be taken.\u00a0 One is to increase the number of nations that accept compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.\u00a0 Currently, only 75 nations of the 193 UN member states<\/a> do so.\u00a0 Another is to increase the number of nations that are parties to the statute of the International Criminal Court.\u00a0 The current number is 125<\/a>, and does not include the United States, Russia, China, and Israel.<\/p>\n

Even the use of the veto in the UN Security Council\u2015employed most frequently by the U.S. and Russian governments<\/a>\u2015could be limited to some degree.\u00a0 One way is to simply enforce Article 27 in the UN Charter<\/a> providing that a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting on that dispute.\u00a0 Another\u2015championed by France and Mexico\u2015is to exclude the veto<\/a> in situations of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.<\/p>\n

Also, of course, deadbeat nations could be pressured into paying their UN dues\u2015for example, by denying them their vote<\/a> in the UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n

More thoroughgoing action would be difficult to secure, but not impossible<\/a>.\u00a0 Perhaps the leading obstacle to a substantial strengthening of the United Nations and the international law it seeks to develop and enforce is the provision in the UN Charter that all five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France) must agree to any change in the Charter.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the Charter also provides that a two-thirds vote by the General Assembly and by any nine members of the Security Council can produce a Charter review conference. Consequently, there is now a significant campaign underway to call for one.\u00a0 And, if such a meeting is held, perhaps after the current crop of aging, reactionary officials has passed from the scene, who really knows what will occur?<\/p>\n

Admittedly, the prospects aren\u2019t good for halting the return of nations to their traditional practices of war and imperialism.<\/p>\n

Even so, if people can create the scientific and technological marvels of the modern world, they might also be capable of developing ways to stop killing one another.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Lawrence S. Wittner (<\/em>https:\/\/www.lawrenceswittner.com\/<\/em><\/a> ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY\/Albany and the author of <\/em>Confronting the Bomb<\/em><\/a> (Stanford University Press).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 Mar 2026 – Donald Trump\u2019s war of choice in the Middle East is but the latest indication that the system of international law\u2015which provides guidelines for the behavior of nations in world affairs\u2015is crumbling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":314055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3933],"tags":[3281,1644,2395,629,651,2159,985,1860,249,124,70],"class_list":["post-314053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-law","tag-evil-empire","tag-international-court-of-justice-icj","tag-international-criminal-court-icc","tag-international-law","tag-justice","tag-rogue-states","tag-social-justice","tag-the-hague-court","tag-trump","tag-united-nations","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314056,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314053\/revisions\/314056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}