With the US and Israeli attack on Iran, the world has once again witnessed a clear violation of international law. Does this mean that the wars of the 21st century are putting an end to classical international law?
The majority of experts consider the US and Israeli attacks on Iran to be a violation of international law. This opinion is also shared by Anne Peters, the director of the Max Planck Institute for International Law in Heidelberg. She is also a member of the German government's scientific council for international law.
But shouldn't it still be possible to stop despotic regimes, such as the one in Iran, which grossly violate human rights, by military means? Can an intervention driven by humanitarian considerations be justified, asks the German public broadcaster ARD in this regard?
Is it a humanitarian intervention?
The idea of humanitarian intervention has been discussed in international law for decades. One of the cases in which it was put forward as a justification was the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999. There, Serbian troops had committed serious human rights violations against the Albanian civilian population. At that time, NATO carried out heavy air strikes without a UN mandate. Along with other countries, Germany also joined in at the time.
However, Anne Peters argues that the thesis of intervention for humanitarian reasons can easily be abused. In the case of Kosovo, for example, it was strongly contested and ultimately failed to prevail, ARD recalls. In legal practice, the view that such unilateral actions are unjustified and would be permissible only if they were under the auspices of the UN and after authorization by the Security Council has rather prevailed.
And with regard to Iran, the US and Israel did not invoke the idea of humanitarian intervention when the Iranian government was suppressing the protests with blood. “Trump did indeed say then that help was already on the way, but when Iran was attacked militarily, nothing was said on this issue“, emphasizes the international law specialist quoted by ARD.
Main problem: the blockades in the Security Council
According to Peters, international law has the potential to be further developed - as often happens after severe crises. This happened, for example, after the crisis in Rwanda in 1994, when the idea that there is a duty to protect was born. According to this understanding, the international community is obliged to intervene if “there is a risk of truly serious crimes such as genocide, mass murder, crimes against humanity“.
But even in this case, a mandate from the UN Security Council is required for military intervention. However, the Security Council is regularly blocked when the major powers with veto power - the US, Russia and China - have different interests. In the case of Iran, this is exactly the case. Peters regrets that the Security Council blockade has thwarted the “ideal scenario”. She believes that the Security Council could have accepted that even "the mere "accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, even without an imminent threat of attack", is already a threat to peace, and therefore authorize military intervention.
Although international law has been repeatedly violated by militarily powerful states in recent decades, legal consequences have often followed for them. This is the case, for example, with the United Kingdom after the war in Iraq in 2003, which was also in violation of international law. This shows that international law has not lost its importance, Peters told ARD.
Danger of double standards
According to her, a major problem with international law is that in the global South it is perceived primarily as a project of the West, and the problems of the South are often treated as secondary. The ARD gives the example of Sudan: a UN panel of experts recently found that serious human rights violations are taking place there. "But the international community is doing nothing about it. Hence the accusation that international law is often applied selectively," says Peters.
The fact that the West only reacts to certain violations of international law leads to "countries from the global South feeling cheated - they are left with the belief that international law is much more useful for Western countries than for them." Even if it is a bit exaggerated, there is some truth in this, says Peters. She notes that the economic interests of these countries in particular should be taken much more seriously. However, the topic of the global South currently seems to be completely off the agenda, ARD quotes her as saying.
The expert is not pessimistic about the role played by international law, however. The fact is that it has always developed after major catastrophes - for example, after World War II and the Holocaust, as well as after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many new international organizations were created at that time, such as the World Trade Organization in 1994 or the International Criminal Court in 1998.