

International Law
Justice, Insurgency and the Gaza War: An International Law Perspective
“Justice is a contract neither to do nor to suffer wrong.”-Plato, Republic[1]
Abstract: This essay will focus upon current issues of insurgency,[2] counterterrorism and Humanitarian International Law in the Middle East. As Israel and Hamas now confront each other in another Gaza war, both should correctly identify and accept only proper criteria of jurisprudential assessment. Accordingly, the legal argument here will not be intentionally for or against any particular Arab or Israeli policies, but to underscore an unceasing global requirement to apply uniformly correct standards of pertinent international law. In the final analysis, following Plato, justice in this urgent matter must be a “contract” between parties “neither to do or to suffer wrong.”
It is time for candor. Former US President Donald J. Trump’s “Abraham Accords”[3] did nothing to confront the long-standing Palestinian insurgency against Israel. On the contrary, these contrived agreements were designed only for Trump’s domestic political benefit, and angered the Palestinians without providing either side tangible benefits. Jerusalem, therefore, must continue to defend itself against assorted charges of “disproportionality.” Now, more or less inevitably, there will emerge yet another unpredictable “cycle of violence.”[4]
What does international law say about these rapidly dissembling circumstances? What are the legal requirements of “proportionality” under the Law of War or Humanitarian international Law.[5] Looking ahead, these requirements ought never to be ignored or disregarded. In essence, these concern not merely specific adversarial issues in an anarchic world politics, but core matters of a long-settled jurisprudence,
In law, especially, words matter. The legally correct meaning of “proportionality” has nothing to do with maintaining equivalence in the use of military force. Under authoritative international law, especially the Law of War, the standard of proportionality is never just a consideration of intuition or “common sense.” Above all, it is a matter of Reason,[6] an integral foundation of all codified and customary international law.[7] Among other things, this standard seeks to ensure that every belligerent’s resort to armed force remain limited to what is “necessary” to meet appropriate military objectives.[8]
In these times, though we still speak narrowly of “international law,” every identifiable belligerent includes not only states, but also insurgent and terrorist armed forces.[9] This means, inter alia, that even where an insurgency is presumptively lawful – that is, where it seemingly meets the criteria of a “just cause” – it must still satisfy all corollary expectations of “just means.” To the issue here at hand, even if Hamas and Palestinian Authority have a presumptive right to fight militarily against an Israeli “occupation,” that fight still needs to respect the legal limitations of “discrimination,” “proportionality” and “military necessity.” More precisely, deliberately firing rockets into Israeli civilian areas and/or placing military assets amid Palestinian civilian populations always represents a crime of war.
In the second case, the pertinent crime is formally known as “perfidy.”
There is more. Under no circumstances does the principle of proportionality suggest that either party to an ongoing conflict must impose only symmetrical harms upon the enemy. If that sort of “common sense” suggestion were actually correct, there would be no modern historical equivalent to America’s flagrantly “disproportionate” attacks on European and Japanese cities during World War II. By that standard, Dresden, Cologne, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would represent the documented nadir of inhumane belligerency. These US attacks would represent the modern world’s very worst violations of Humanitarian International Law.
All too often, in the seemingly endless Palestinian belligerencyagainst Israel, background is merely glossed-over. Sometimes, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and related terror groups, take verifiable steps to ensure that Israeli reprisals willkill or injure Arab noncombatants. To wit, by placing selected noncombatants in those areas from which Arab rockets are launched into Israeli homes, hospitals and schools, Palestinian leaders – not Israeli defenders – are violating the most fundamental expectations (more technically, “peremptory” or “jus cogens” expectations) of humanitarian international law.[10]
Any use of “human shields” represents substantially greater wrongdoing than simple immorality or cowardice. It expresses a starkly delineated and punishable crime. Perfidy is identified as a “grave breach” at Article 147 of Geneva Convention IV. Deception can be legally acceptable in armed conflict, but The Hague Regulations specifically disallow any placement of military assets or personnel in populated civilian areas. Related prohibitions of perfidy can be found at Protocol I of 1977, additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. These rules are also binding on the discrete but still-intersecting basis of customary international law, a jurisprudential source identified at Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice.[11]
All combatants, including Palestinian insurgents allegedly fighting for “self-determination,”[12] are bound by the law of war. This core requirement is found at Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949.[13] It cannot be suspended or abrogated.
Some Palestinian terror groups, especially in the aftermath of a disregarded or imposed peace settlement, may seek to prepare for launching mega-terror attacks on Israel. Such aggressions, plausibly unprecedented and possibly in cooperation with variously allied non-Palestinian Jihadists, could include chemical and/or biological weapons of mass destruction. In the worst-case scenario, especially if Iran should agree to transfer portions of its expanding inventory of nuclear materials to proxy terror groups, Israel could sometime have to face Palestinian-directed nuclear terrorism.[14] Also possible, though presently still implausible, is that residual ISIS-type surrogates could displace a formal leadership cadre in “Palestine,” and that Israel (and relevant allies) could then have to face a more starkly insidious source of atomic terror.[15]
What happens then, when combatants find themselves in extremis atomicum?
There is more. Though former US President Donald Trump was likely correct that ISIS had already been effectively eliminated as an organization, the underlying Jihadist ideology was anything but removed or defeated.[16] To best predict possible outcomes, analysts and policy-makers will need to continuously refine their skills for capably dialectical reasoning.
Always, however perilous a perceived threat, Israel has sought to keep its essential counterterrorism operations consistent with applicable law. For their part, however, Palestinian fighters remain in generally deliberate and persistent violation of virtually all recognizable rules of civilized military engagement. Significantly, terror-violence launched from Gaza accelerated immediately after Israel left the area in 2005, a “disengagement” that Jerusalem had expected (or hoped) to produce greater intercommoned harmony. [17]
From the standpoint of international law, terrorism is more than just bad behavior. It is a distinct crime under international law. Such crime is neither minimized or exonerated by partisan intimations of “just cause.”
Various manipulated expressions of jurisprudential reasoning notwithstanding, the Palestinian side must bear full legal responsibility for most Arab civilian casualties in Gaza. Arguably, absent their pre-meditated attacks on Israeli civilian populations, there would be no reciprocal Palestinian harms. Though Israeli military operations do kill and wound Arab noncombatants in every “cycle of violence,” these casualties are unavoidable and inadvertent. When Hamas rockets are launched against Israeli targets from Gaza, the acknowledged Palestinian intent is to kill and wound Israeli civilians.
In law, all law, criminal intent or mens rea is singularly important.
International law is not a suicide pact. Even amid long-enduring Westphalian anarchy,[18] it offers an authoritative body of rules and procedures that clearly permits a beleaguered state – any beleaguered state – to express an “inherent right of self-defense.” But when certain Arab terrorist organizations celebrate the explosive “martyrdom” of Palestinian civilians and when certain Palestinian leaders seek religious “redemption” through mass-murder of “unbelievers,” the wrongdoers have no residual legal claims to sanctuary.[19]
There is more.Under international law, such criminals are called Hostes humani generis or “common enemies of humankind.” Unambiguously, in law, this category of murderers must invite punishment wherever they are found. Concerning their required arrest and prosecution, jurisdiction is now termed, after Nuremberg (1945-46) “universal.” Also relevant is that the historic Nuremberg Tribunal strongly reaffirmed the ancient legal principle of Nullum crimen sine poena, or “No crime without a punishment.”[20]
There is a manifestly non-legal but still significant point that remains germane to wrongful allegations of Israeli “disproportionality.” Many Palestinian commanders who control terror-mayhem against Israel cower unheroically in safe towns and cities. Prima facie, these commanders are not eager to become “martyrs” themselves.
Few Americans have even glanced at the nation’s Constitution. Derivatively, many US critics of Israel remain determinedly unfamiliar with the laws of war of international law. Just as seriously, they fail to recognize that these laws represent an integral and incorporated part of the domestic or municipal law of the United States. The US Constitution, especially Article 6 (the so-called “Supremacy Clause”) and several corollary Supreme Court decisions, particularly the Paquete Habana (1900),[21] codify this authoritative incorporation.
Inter alia, this means that consistent misuse of relevant international law represents a wrongful interpretation of American Constitutional law. It is especially vital that major political parties and leaders now become better acquainted with the governing laws of war, and conscientiously apply these basic rules with fairness to all instances of international armed conflict. In the final analysis, the core issue concerning Humanitarian International Law here is not about Israel and the Palestinians per se, but instead the willingness of all major states in world politics to sustain uniformly civilized standards of global military conduct. and conflict resolution.[22]
There must be evident an ethical or humanitarian calculus in all these particular circumstances. Although an ideal world order would contain “neither victims nor executioners,” such an optimal arrangement of global power and authority is not yet on the horizon.[23] Confronting what he once called “our century of fear,” Camus asks his readers to be “neither victims nor executioners,” living not in a world in which killing has disappeared (“we are not so crazy as that”), but wherein killing has become per se illegitimate. This is certainly a fine expectation of philosophy, but not one that can be harmonized with strategic or jurisprudential realism.
For the moment, Hamas and its allies continue to adhere to knowingly wrongful definitions of “proportionality,” that is, manipulative definitions calling for “equivalence.” At the same time, Israel continually alleges an inherent right to broad targeting strategies that is based on frequently unverified or unverifiable allegations of Palestinian “perfidy.” Though verifying instances of Hamas perfidy would better immunize Israel from legal responsibility for inadvertent IDF harms inflicted upon noncombatant Palestinian populations, such verification could also undermine tactical successes. In the best of all possible worlds, both Israel and Hamas would simply accept Plato’s rudimentary definition of justice “neither to do nor to suffer wrong,” but this “Westphalian” world is still based less on abstract considerations of law and justice than on crudely zero-sum competitions for power and advantage.
What next? As long as states (e.g., Israel) and aspiring states (e.g., “Palestine”) exist in a world of international anarchy – that is, in the decentralized system of international law originally bequeathed at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648[24] – conflicts such as the Israel-Hamas Gaza War will continue to be treated as adversarial. Until the world can finally progress meaningfully beyond such an inherently self-destructive ethos, the enforcement of international law will depend largely upon the cooperative interactions of several major states, especially the United States. In this connection, great responsibility will fall upon the American president and Congress to speak on behalf of a conspicuously more law-enforcing orientation to international law. In specific reference to Israel, Hamas and the Gaza War, this will mean an obligation to (1) abjure narrowly contrived definitions of “disproportionality;” and (2) acknowledge a broad Israeli right to self-defense against terror wherever Palestinian resort to “human shields” or perfidy can be suitably verified.
Truth is exculpatory. This is not yet the best of all possible worlds, but it is assuredly the right time to make a refined start in that direction. Deliberate Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians are always unlawful and never pardonable. Reciprocally, measured Israeli bombings of Gaza structures harboring Hamas terrorists or weapons are always lawful and law-enforcing, but only in those cases where Jerusalem can supply convincing evidence of Palestinian “perfidy.” Though meeting such a legal obligation to gather verifiable evidence of Palestinian perfidy during an ongoing belligerency is ipso facto problematic, dispensing with this obligation altogether could leave Israel suspended under a perpetual cloud of generalized suspicion and disbelief.[25]
What is to be done now? Whatever the differences between them, all sides to this still-escalating conflict have a coinciding and interdependent obligation to support Humanitarian International Law. Among other things, it is the de facto and de jure responsibility of the United States and other world powers[26] to insist that both Israel and the pertinent Palestinian organizations meet this overriding obligation. In the end, such a complex task would represent not “only” matters of ethical and dignified behavior, but also ones of seriously intellectual[27] and cosmopolitan[28] thought.
[1] See also, Philus in Bk III, Sec. 5 of Cicero, DE REPUBLICA.
[2] For a discussion of authoritative criteria to distinguish permissible insurgencies from impermissible ones, see: Louis René Beres, “The Legal Meaning of Terrorism for the Military Commander,” CONNECTICUT JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Vol. 11., No. 1., Fall 1995, pp. 1-27
[3] https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords/
[4] In the past, such cycles have been widely described as “cycles of violence in the Middle East.” See, by this writer, Louis René Beres, https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19415; and at Harvard Law School,
[5] The principle of proportionality is contained in both the rules governing the resort to armed conflict (jus ad bellum) and in the rules governing the actual conduct of hostilities (jus in bello). In the former, proportionality relates to self-defense. In the latter, it relates to conduct of belligerency. Proportionality is itself derivative from the more basic principle that belligerent rights are not unlimited (See notably Hague Convention No. IV (1907), Annex to the Convention, Section II (Hostilities), Art. 22: “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited”).
[6] The primal importance of reason to legal judgment was prefigured in ancient Israel. Jewish theory of law, insofar as it displays the influence of Natural Law, offers a transcending order revealed by the divine word as interpreted by human reason. In the words of Ecclesiastics 32.23, 37.16, 13-14: “Let reason go before every enterprise and counsel before any action…And let the counsel of thine own heart stand…For a man’s mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than seven watchmen that sit above in a high tower….”
[7] Article 38(1)(b) of the STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE describes international custom as “evidence of a general practice accepted as law.” The essential significance of a norm’s customary character is that the norms bind even those states that are not parties to the pertinent codification. Even where a customary norm and a norm restated in treaty form are apparently identical, these norms are treated as jurisprudentially discrete. During the merits phase of MILITARY AND PARAMILITARY ACTIVITIES IN AND AGAINST NICARAGUA, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stated: “Even if two norms belonging to two sources of international law appear identical in content, and even if the States in question are bound by these rules both on the level of treaty-law and on that of customary international law, these norms retain a separate existence.” See: MILITARY AND PARAMILITARY ACTIVITIES IN AND AGAINST NICARAGUA, Nicar. V. US., Merits, 1986 ICJ, Rep. 14 (Judgment of 27 June).
[8] The related principle of “military necessity” is defined authoritatively as follows: “Only that degree and kind of force, not otherwise prohibited by the law of armed conflict, required for the partial or complete submission of the enemy with a minimum expenditure of time, life, and physical resources may be applied.” See: United States, Department of the Navy, jointly with Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps; and Department of Transportation, U.S. Coast Guard, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, NWP 1-14M, Norfolk, Virginia, October 1995, p. 5-1.
[9]Applying the laws of war to insurgent participants dates to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. As more than codified treaties and conventions comprise the law of war, it is plain that the authoritative obligations of jus in bello (justice in war) are part of “the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations” (from Art. 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice) and bind all categories of belligerents. Additionally, Hague Convention IV of 1907 declares that even in the absence of a precisely published set of guidelines regarding “unforeseen cases,” the operative pre-conventional sources of humanitarian international law still obtain and govern all belligerency.
[10] According to Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: “…a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.” See: Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Done at Vienna, May 23, 1969. Entered into force, Jan. 27, 1980. U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 39/27 at 289 (1969), 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, reprinted in 8 I.L.M. 679 (1969).
[11] On the main corpus of jus in bello or humanitarian international law, see: Convention No. IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, With Annex of Regulations, October 18, 1907. 36 Stat. 2277, T.S. No. 539, 1 Bevans 631 (known commonly as the “Hague Regulations:); Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. Done at Geneva, Aug. 12, 1949. Entered into force, Oct. 21, 1950. 6 U.S.T. 3114, T.I.A.S. No. 3362, 75 U.N.T.S. 31; Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea. Done at Geneva, Aug. 12, 1949. Entered into force, Oct. 21, 1950. 6 U.S.T. 3217, T.I.A.S. No. 3363, 75 U.N.T.S. 85; Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Done at Geneva, Aug. 12, 1949. Entered into force, Oct. 21, 1950. 6 U.S.T. 3316, T.I.A.S. No. 3364, 75 U.N.T.S. 135; Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Done at Geneva, Aug. 12, 1949. Entered into force, Oct. 21, 1950. 6 U.S.T. 3516, T.I.A.S. No. 3365, 75 U.N.T.S. 287.
[12] Doctrinally, Palestinian hostility to Israel is oriented to removal of the Jewish State by attrition and annihilation. This unhidden orientation has its foundations in the PLO’s “Phased Plan” of June 9, 1974. In its 12th Session, the PLO’s highest deliberative body, the Palestinian National Council, reiterated the PLO aim as being “to achieve their rights to return, and to self-determination on the whole of their homeland.” The proposed sequence of violence is expressed as follows: FIRST, “to establish a combatant national authority over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated” (Art. 2); SECOND, “to use that territory to continue the fight against Israel” (Art. 4); and THIRD, “to start a Pan-Arab War to complete the liberation of the all-Palestinian territory, i.e., to eliminate Israel” (Art. 8).
[13] According to the rules of international law, every use of force must be judged twice: once with regard to the right to wage war (jus ad bellum), and once with regard to the means used in conducting war (jus in bello). Today, in the aftermath of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, and the United Nations Charter, all right to aggressive war has been abolished. However, the long-standing customary right of self-defense remains, codified at Article 51 of the Charter. Similarly, subject to conformance, inter alia, with jus in bello criteria, certain instances of humanitarian intervention and collective security operations may also be consistent with jus ad bellum. The laws of war, the rules of jus in bello, comprise (1) laws on weapons; (2) laws on warfare; and (3) humanitarian rules. Codified primarily at The Hague and Geneva Conventions (and known thereby as the law of The Hague and the law of Geneva), these rules attempt to bring considerations of discrimination, proportionality and military necessity into belligerent calculations.
[14] Professor Louis René Beres is author of one of the earliest books on the subject of nuclear terrorism: Terrorism and Global Security: The Nuclear Threat (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1979). For assessments of nuclear war consequences by this same author, see: Louis René Beres, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd. ed., 2018); Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Louis René Beres, Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1983); Louis René Beres, Reason and Realpolitik: US Foreign Policy and World Order (Lexington MA; Lexington Books, 1984); and Louis René Beres, ed., Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1986).
[15] Such sources could include a non-nuclear terrorist attack on the Israeli reactor at Dimona. There is a documented history of enemy attempts against this Israeli plutonium-production reactor, both by a state (Iraq) in 1991, and by a Palestinian terror group (Hamas) in 2014. Neither attack was successful, but relevant precedents were established. For more on the specific threat to Israel’s nuclear reactor facilities, see: Bennett Ramberg, “Should Israel Close Dimona? The Radiological Consequences of a Military Strike on Israel’s Plutonium-Production Reactor,” Arms Control Today, May 2008, pp. 6-13. See also, by the same author: Bennett Ramberg, “The Next Chernobyl May Be Intentional,” Reuters, April 26, 2016.
[16] See, by Professor Louis René Beres at Oxford University Press: https://blog.oup.com/2016/11/isis-security-ideology/
[17] It would be similarly unrealistic for Israeli planners to count on some form of Palestinian – state “demilitarization.” See, by Professor Beres, “Demilitarizing Palestine,” at Oxford Yearbook of International Law, Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 191-206. See also, with Israeli Ambassador Zalman Shoval: Louis René Beres and (Ambassador) Zalman Shoval, “Why a Demilitarized Palestinian State Would Not Remain Demilitarized: A View Under International Law,” Temple International and Comparative Law Journal, Winter 1998, pp. 347-363; and Louis René Beres and Zalman Shoval, “On Demilitarizing a Palestinian `Entity’ and the Golan Heights: An International Law Perspective,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 28, No. 5, November 1995, pp. 959-972.
[18] This de facto condition of Westphalian anarchy stands in contrast to the jurisprudential assumption of solidarity between states. This law-based assumption concerns a presumptively common legal struggle against both aggression and terrorism. Such a “peremptory” expectation, known formally in law as a jus cogens assumption, was already mentioned in Justinian, Corpus Juris Civilis (533 CE); Hugo Grotius, 2 De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres, Ch. 20 (Francis W. Kesey., tr, Clarendon Press, 1925) (1690); and Emmerich de Vattel, 1 Le Droit Des Gens, Ch. 19 (1758).
[19]In the Arab Middle East, where theological doctrine divides carefully into the dar al-Islam (world of Islam) and the dar al-harb (world of war), acts of terror against unbelievers have long been taken as an exemplary expression of sacredness. Here, individual sacrifice derives, in large part, from a fervidly hoped-for conquest of personal death. By adopting such atavistic practice, the Jihadist terrorist expects to realize an otherwise unattainable immortality, not to mention other substantially seductive and corollary benefits. For Hamas, which ultimately seeks power in a new state of Palestine, there are certain obligatory aspects of sacrificial terror that must never be overlooked. These aspects, underscoring the two-sided nature of terror/sacrifice – that is, the sacrifice of “The Jew,” and the reciprocal sacrifice of “The Martyr” – is explicitly codified within the Charter of Hamas, as a “religious” problem.” See, by this author, Louis René Beres: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol39/iss3/2/
[20] This is also a “Higher Law” or “Natural Law” principle. In his DE OFFICIIS, Cicero wrote: “There is in fact a true law namely right reason, which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men and is unchangeable and eternal…. It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today and another tomorrow. But there will be one law eternal and unchangeable binding at all times and upon all peoples.” See also DE LEGIBUS, Bk. i, c, vii. Blackstone’s COMMENTARIES expressly recognize that all law “results from those principles of natural justice, in which all the learned of every nation agree….” See William Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND, adapted by Robert Malcolm Kerr (Boston; Beacon Press, 1962), Book IV, “Of Public Wrongs,” p. 62 (Chapter V., “Of Offenses Against the Law of Nations.”). Thomas Aquinas recalls Augustine as follows: “St. Augustine says: `There is no law unless it be just.’ So the validity of law depends upon its justice. But in human affairs a thing is said to be just when it accords aright with the rule of reason: and as we have already seen, the first rule of reason is the Natural Law. Thus all humanly enacted laws are in accord with reason to the extent that they derive from the Natural law. And if a human law is at variance in any particular with the Natural law, it is no longer legal, but rather a corruption of law.” See SUMMA THEOLOGICA, 1a 2ae, 95, 2; cited by D’ Entreves, supra, pp. 42 – 43
[21] In the words used by the U.S. Supreme Court in The Paquete Habana, “International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination. For this purpose, where there is no treaty, and no controlling executive or legislative act or judicial decision, resort must be had to the customs and usages of civilized nations.” See The Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. 677, 678-79 (1900). See also: The Lola, 175 U.S. 677 (1900); Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F. 2d 774, 781, 788 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (per curiam) (Edwards, J. concurring) (dismissing the action, but making several references to domestic jurisdiction over extraterritorial offenses), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1003 (1985) (“concept of extraordinary judicial jurisdiction over acts in violation of significant international standards…embodied in the principle of `universal violations of international law.'”).
[22] Such standards may have to be assessed not only in the context of a long-standing Westphalian anarchy, but also in a conceivably emerging chaos. Nonetheless, there are still places wherein chaos is seen as much as a source of potential human betterment as one of declension. In the Hebrew Bible, for relevant example, chaos is regarded as that condition which prepares the world for all things, both peaceful and violent, both sacred and profane. Moreover, as its core etymology reveals, chaos represents the yawning gulf or gap wherein nothing is as yet, but also where civilizational opportunity must inevitably originate. The German poet Holderlin observed accordingly: “There is a desert, sacred and chaotic, which stands at the roots of the things and which prepares all things.” Even in the ancient pagan world, the Greeks regarded such a desert as logos, which indicates to us that it was then presumed to be anything but starkly random or without conceivable merit.
[23] This phrase is taken from Albert Camus, Neither Victims nor Executioners (Dwight Mc Donald., ed., 1968)).
[24] The historic Peace of Westphalia (1648) concluded the Thirty Years War and created the still-existing state system. See: Treaty of Peace of Munster, Oct. 1648, 1 Consol. T.S. 271; and Treaty of Peace of Osnabruck, Oct. 1648, 1., Consol. T.S. 119. Together, these two treaties comprise the “Peace of Westphalia.”
[25] To Wit: See: https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-top-editor-calls-probe-163811444.html
[26] The permanent members of the UN Security Council would be an appropriate place to begin.
[27] In the 17th century, French philosopher Blaise Pascal remarked prophetically in Pensées: “All our dignity consists in thought. It is upon this that we must depend…Let us labor then to think well: this is the foundation of morality.” Similar reasoning characterizes the writings of Baruch Spinoza, Pascal’s 17th-century contemporary. In Book II of Ethics, Spinoza considers the human mind or “intellectual attributes,” and drawing from René Descartes defines a comprehensive theory of human learning.
[28] According to Talmud: “The earth from which the first man was made was gathered in all the four corners of the world.”
International Law
What does the Arctic Ocean hold for the world in changing global politics?

“The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate”, a book by Robert Kaplan sheds light on the imperative role of geography in changing the destiny of nations. Only geography of a country doesn’t benefit countries much, but technology and research open ways to become a developed nation. History showed the true manifestation of this fact. The arrival of Vasco de Gama in the Indian Ocean and his discovery of the trade route brought the interest of great powers of that time to the subcontinent. The arrival of these powers in the subcontinent changed the fate of indigenous people. However, they also benefited from the sea and natural resources of the Indian subcontinent. The past tells that sea and national resources are the cornerstone of the country’s position in global politics but also attracts attention from world powers. Similarly, In today’s world, where the world is confronting the energy crisis, global warming, challenges of the supply chain, and chasing maximization of resources as a strategic benefit, the arctic ocean grapes the world’s attention. The Arctic Ocean is located in the North polar region. The main countries sharing the arctic ocean are the US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. According to the world economic forum, 13% of undiscovered oil is present in the arctic ocean as well as 30% of undiscovered gas is present there. Apart from these bordering countries, non-Arctic countries also have a great economic and strategic interest in the arctic which includes India, japan, south korea, and many more.
Energy security, Europe and Russia
The invasion of Russia in Ukraine highlighted an issue of energy security in the world but on the other hand, the strategic use of renewable energy resources also came into the light. The rising energy prices and halting supply of energy gave a call for a diversification of energy resources to gain strategic defense where overly dependence can put countries in a vulnerable situation. In this geopolitics and geoeconomics scenario, Norway is fully reaping the benefits of its research and exploration of oil resources in the arctic ocean. In all these circumstances, the strategic importance of renewable resources in the arctic ocean came under discussion. The reason behind this is that renewable energy resources like wind and solar energy are difficult to be weaponized at the time of war. Somehow, the rising global warming which is opening avenues to utilize untapped resources also demands a shift toward renewable energy resources. Though the shift from fossil fuels is difficult, Ukraine Russia war triggers a debate on the use of renewable resources where the arctic ocean can be proved an excellent opportunity to opt for a renewable energy policy in the world.
New trade routes, Sino-Russia, USA, and non-arctic countries
The development of the Northern Sea Route by China and Russia will provide a faster route for the passage 0f traffic as compared to the passage from the Suez canal which will attract more attention from the world in terms of economic and environmental benefits i.e. fuel consumption reduced and it also has a positive impact on the environment. But it will have a drastic impact on Egypt whose major chunk of the economy is contributed by earnings from the Suez Canal. Additionally, the development of trade routes in the arctic ocean will also impact the Malacca strait, especially in Singapore and Indonesia. Therefore, it is showing that new trading routes will have an impact on certain countries and supply chains will change. The strategic, economic, and strategic benefits of this area attract the world, but it also raises the question: will this region become a new area of strategic competition? According to Malte Humpert in his article New US Arctic Strategy Foreshadows Increasing Hurdles for Cooperation in a More Complex Region The U.S. strategy is built around four pillars: security, climate change and environmental protection, sustainable economic development, and international cooperation and governance. The US Arctic policy 2022 which is the first time published after 2013 highlighted The strategy specifically singles out Russia and China as the two main competitors in the Arctic and highlights their recent activities in the Arctic in light of the growing strategic importance. Contrary, sino-russia both have a point of divergence and convergence for interest. Since both countries are collaborating in different areas mainly in One Belt One Road and other areas of mutual benefit, most likely they will collaborate in areas of energy and research in the arctic ocean. Similarly, the interest of other non-arctic countries like Japan and India, etc in the arctic ocean also demands a collaborative approach between stakeholders. In today’s global world where every country is focusing on strengthening their economies by opting strategy of diversifying their income sources and trying to attain natural resources to gain strategic advantage, it is the need of the hour to have collaboration between countries under the umbrella of international organizations because a healthy competition between countries bring development in technologies and development but unhealthy competition results in a disastrous impact on the world especially under developing and developing countries.
Global warming, arctic ocean, climate challenges
The melting ice in the arctic ocean, and the exploitation of oil resources, and minerals will impact the climate of the world. The Arctic Ocean is one of the untapped resources of the world. The melting in the arctic ocean will bring a change in geo-economic and geopolitical areas. The exploitation of resources causes the emission of immense carbon dioxide that has transboundary impacts especially on developing countries which are already facing indigenous challenges altogether. The heat weaves in Europe, devastating floods in Pakistan, and other examples create challenges for the world. Therefore, there is a need for a special focus on climate change concerning the arctic ocean.
What is next?
The future of the world lies in peace. The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine depicts that the war has ripple effects and impacts the lives of every individual on the earth in this globalized world. The strategic competition between great powers is good until it fosters research, and the upgradation of technology which is a symbol of healthy competition, but when this competition shouldn’t result in a cold war which proves a disaster for the world. The stakeholders of the arctic ocean should come under one umbrella and work together by keeping in view mutual benefits. Therefore, the world needs to develop policies to counter global warming by keeping in view the arctic ocean.
International Law
Putin, Xi, the ICC, and the Demise of Global Judiciary

Authors: Roman Kusaiko and Alexey Ilin*
On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Russian president Vladimir Putin. The press release stated that Prosecution’s application was filed on the February 22, 2023, while the existence of the warrants was disclosed on March 17, 2023. This is the first time the ICC releases a warrant against a sitting president. Moreover, it immediately preceded the visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which took place on March 20-22, 2023. While the warrant is expected to force Russia and its leader into submission, the end result may be the erosion and eventual demise of the universal criminal justice.
Historical Cleavage
The International Criminal Court was established by the Rome Statute (done July 17, 1998, in force July 1, 2002) to prosecute the most serious crimes of international concern, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression (Rome Statute art. 5). The ICC has three main advantages against its predecessors – the ad hoc tribunals such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). First, it is a permanent court. Second, it is based on an international treaty and not the United Nations Security Council resolution, which gives it more legitimacy. Third, the ICC jurisdiction is not limited to a particular country or case – the Court can prosecute a crime if it was committed either by a national of a State Party, or on a State Party’s territory. Generally, officials of the non-party states cannot be prosecuted, but even this barrier can be overcome if the situation is referred to the Prosecutor by the UN Security Council (Rome Statute art. 13(b)).
France and the UK are the only State Parties to the ICC among those countries that legally possess nuclear weapons (under the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty). China, India, Pakistan and North Korea neither signed nor acceded to the Rome Statute while the U.S., Russia, and Israel officially refused to ratify the treaty. The attitude towards the Court reveals a divide in states’ perception of international criminal justice. Countries with extensive military capabilities decided not to delegate any of their judicial power to an external international institution. The rest of the countries delegated their authority to an international judiciary seeking justice in case any major crimes are committed against them.
Political Appropriation
Since its inception, the Court’s authority has been facing challenges, especially from the U.S. The latter has a long history of complicated relations with the ICC, from open hostility to the recent bipartisan support. Most prominently, the “Hague Invasion Act” grants the U.S. the right to use military force to liberate any U.S. or allied country’s citizen being held by the ICC. The existence of such methods undermines the authority of the Court and also manifests that the U.S. and its allies are “out of judicial range” and thus not accountable before the international community.
The ICC has been repeatedly stumbling in its attempts to investigate the most serious crimes in the areas where the U.S. and their allies conducted their military operations. Between 2014 and 2020, the ICC investigated the war crimes in Iraq (willful killing, torture, and rape) committed by the armed forces of America’s closest ally – the UK. Nevertheless, the investigation was closed in 2020 raising criticism from European institutions, non-government organizations and multiple media sources. Some critics claimed the ICC’s refusal to hold the UK accountable discredited the Court’s authority. Afghanistan has been a State Party to the ICC since 2003, but the Court has not taken any decisive actions in this country until October 2022, when its Pre-Trial Chamber authorized the Prosecution to resume its investigation of war crimes. This move has been first rejected in 2019, and then deferred in 2020. Likewise, the ICC Preliminary Investigation team has been halting the prosecution of war crimes committed in Syria for more than three years despite the ample evidence.
At the same time, reasonable grounds against Vladimir Putin for organizing an unlawful deportation of children were found in less than a month – an unprecedented speed. The disclosure of the ICC warrant on March 17, 2023 suspiciously coincided with the announcement of Xi Jinping’s official visit to Moscow. The announcement was made only on the 17th of March, 2023, with the agenda reported by both Chinese and Russian sources. It is hard to believe in such a coincidence, especially after subsequent remarks by the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken confirmed that the warrant targeted Chinese leader’s visit. While some media claimed Putin’s days are now numbered, the others were more skeptical referring to the West’s “deafness” for their own atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Further Clusterization
The ICC warrant sends several signals to the Russian state, society, and beyond. The first one is to oust Vladimir Putin from the office to improve relations with the West. The second one is for the Russian elites: as long as Putin is in power, their assets will be always under threat of sanctions and even confiscation. The third one is for the other world leaders: leaving Putin alone at the table will not be enough – legal actions should be taken against him. The Russian leader should become a pariah. One may argue, that such a strategy could be partially successful in 2014, but an open Chinese criticism of the warrant demonstrates that it will have serious limitations in 2023.
Vladimir Putin will not willingly step down, but the warrant will push his government to build parallel institutions with friendly or non-aligned countries. Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin proposed to pass an act similar to the “Hague Invasion Act.” In addition, he prompted the Russian government to sign bilateral agreements which will guarantee the denial of the ICC authority. Moreover, the depth of the issues discussed between Putin and Xi suggest that Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could become an “umbrella” for alternative global institutions, including the judiciary branch. The SCO already hosts regular meetings between the chairs of the Supreme Courts. As more countries are willing to join in, it may become a respected institution of transnational justice. This development, amplified by U.S. unaccountable posture, will bury the once noble idea of global judiciary in The Hague. The ICC will remain what Rwandan President Paul Kagame called it, “the court for Africans and poor countries.”
*Alexey Ilin, Ph.D. candidate at Shanghai Jiaotong University.
International Law
Should We Claim We Truly Understand International Politics?

When the guns roar, the muses are silent, an ancient Latin proverb tells us. This aptly describes how convincing our attempts to explain what is happening in international politics are, from the point of view of the existing apparatus of its rational understanding. For those who try to pretend to understand how international relations evolve, the saddest casualty of current events is the practice of interaction between states, which jettisons all the pre-existing notions at our disposal.
This applies to both academic scholars and those who approach the assessment of political reality from a purely intuitive point of view. Any intuition inevitably fits into the framework of our own worldview, which, in turn, has long been systematised in one way or another within the framework of the science of international relations. Namely, it suffers the greatest defeat of all social disciplines at moments when states and leaders base their actions in feelings, purely individual ideas and moral character. Individuals enter the historical arena, making decisions within the framework of a subjective understanding of the world around them, intellectual abilities or corporate interests.
Conceptualisation, at least on an analytical or on an intuitive level, will be possible later – when the dust of battles has somewhat settled, and the theorists will have firm support in the person of the winners, whose interests will become the basis of a new international order. It has always been like this – the science of international relations has consistently followed practice, guided by only one goal – to understand why this or that power, in the end, benefitted the most from the consequences of a general tragedy. In our case, however, this won’t happen, or at least not soon. Until then, any aspirations to understand what is really happening in international politics will end up with rather monotonous judgments, the only difference between which is how open is the attempt to interpret reality in favour of the interests of one of the fighting parties.
Each political scientist becomes a soldier of his country, and the space for relatively impartial analysis disappears – even those who claim to be impartial inevitably finds themselves within the framework of an interpretation that serves the interests of one of the warring parties. The chroniclers would be relatively independent amid modern conditions, however, the facts now are a very relative thing, easily amenable to extremely convincing falsification. Even playing the role of a holy fool is impossible – in conditions where shells whistle overhead, his innocent bleating always turns out to promote the advantages of one of the opponents. Like the light of the sun or the direction of the wind.
In fact, any of our reasoning that purports to reflect an abstract “understanding of reality” becomes like this. The fact is that we still find examples for comparison in the historical experience which are also the most comfortable for one of the parties participating in the current conflict. Regrets about the collapsed world order or globalization are, of course, humanly understandable. However, they first inevitably send us in the direction of searching for ways to restore something like the lost era, and its illusion of relatively evenly distributed prosperity. This, we agree, fully reflects the interests of the Western countries and is somewhat inconsistent with the way Russia, China and most developing countries would like to see the world. Second, even our conceptual apparatus and categories, which technically have the possibility to construct so-called ideal schemes of the future, were formed within the framework of the international order, where for 500 years a rather narrow group of powers occupied the leading positions. Therefore, when speaking of the need to restore order, we are already at risk of becoming defenders of the interests of status quo powers – our categorical apparatus is still practically undeveloped in terms of a different, more just, from our point of view, international order.
It is not surprising that in a situation where thinking about foreign policy and international relations is a more common and ancient profession, fellow intellectuals have overnight turned into mouthpieces of information warfare. It is sad to read the comments of colleagues representing the realist direction of the science of international politics in the United States: the overwhelming majority of their opponents have completely lost the ability to take any critical view of the behaviour of their homeland and its closest allies. In other words, American, and Western in general, political science has clearly defined which side of the front it is fighting on and will be able to return to a more balanced discussion only after the active phase of the confrontation between the powers is over.
The use of the existing theoretical apparatus for assessing the international reality resembles a funny anachronism, no matter which of the theories we turn to. The reason is that they are also the product, first and foremost, of a specific and geographically localised historical experience, and only secondly of attempts to subordinate social activity to some ideal schemes based on our ideas about universal morality. Powers representing such a variety of political civilizations have now entered a world arena that one cannot rely on, including a systematic understanding of the nature of relations between them. All existing theories were created in a very simple world, where it was always easy to understand the basis of the position of a state within the framework of social relations of its kind.
Each of the nation-specific ways of interpretation cannot claim to be more than a systematisation of worldviews inherent in an individual, rather unique, culture. It is, of course, useful to create, for example, a Russian theory of international relations amid such conditions. First, it will somewhat reduce our dependence on Western concepts, which is extremely good in itself. Second, moving along this path will allow one to understand yourself a little more. This is especially important for Russia, since awareness of self-worth for our political culture is much more important than external recognition. However, in terms of being able to understand international politics in general, we still will not get very far – we will just become the authors of another original view.
Finally, practically all powers whose capabilities are sufficient to pose a potential threat to life on the planet, do not now even have a relatively formed idea of their own ideal future. The Americans are trying to pretend that the return of hegemony over the world will solve their internal development problems. However, this approach causes concern in principle, since moving forward while looking behind you is liable to lead to a fall. Russia is also in search of a state where it can feel self-worth, and the conflict with the West is, in addition to eliminating military-political imbalances, the basis for a better understanding of itself, outlining the image of the future in conditions where it is no longer possible to continue life in the old way. Of all the great powers, only China confidently says that it knows what future it is aiming for. But here, too, we have reason to think that the Celestial Empire is only approaching the need to provide answers to questions about a suitable position for it in world politics and economics.
The position of Europe is dramatic. It is aware of its rapidly declining strength and is increasingly choosing the lesser of two geostrategic evils, from the point of view of the modern European elite. Such behaviour poses a challenge to diplomats, since the choice of the European elite consists of a conscious rejection of international agency of their countries. Under such conditions, not only our ability to discuss international politics seriously in an academic audience freezes, this politics is itself entering a peculiar and very static mode of operation. In fact, it only seems to us that now history is developing rapidly – in fact, it has stopped, and its millstones continue to idle, grinding tens of thousands of human lives.
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