#international-law

#international-law

In September, the Financial Times published an editorial headlined A world without rules. That view was premised on two incidents: Israel's launch of a missile strike on a building that hosted Hamas officials in Qatar; and the flight of 19 Russian drones into Polish airspace. This flouting of the previous rules-based order, the FT said, was now producing a kind of anarchy and a proliferation of violence.

The United States conducted another attack on an alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific on Saturday, killing three people aboard, the Pentagon said on Sunday. Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics, the US Southern Command announced in a post on social media. The announcement said the boat was in international waters when it was struck by the Southern Spear joint taskforce.

The UK's reported decision to restrict intelligence-sharing with the Pentagon on suspected drug-traffickers' boats in the Caribbean is a modest yet symbolic act of resistance to Donald Trump's imperialist revival. Britain is said to have objected to repeated, lethal US airstrikes on alleged smugglers off Venezuela's coast which have been widely condemned as illegal extrajudicial killings amounting to murder. The strikes appear to foreshadow direct US attacks on Venezuela itself.

The United States had evidence last year that Israeli officials discussed how their soldiers sent Palestinians into tunnels in Gaza that the Israelis believed were potentially lined with explosives, two former US officials have told the Reuters news agency. The information was shared with the White House and analysed by the intelligence community in the final weeks of former President Joe Biden's administration, the officials said.

Israel must allow aid into Gaza, and its restrictions on doing so over the past two years have put it in breach of its obligations, the UN's top court has found. The stinging advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in The Hague also found that Israel had a duty not to impede the supply of aid by UN organisations including the beleaguered UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa, which has been in effect banned from the territory since January.

Only a decolonised plan centred on Palestinian sovereignty can bring lasting peace to Gaza. United States President Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza peace plan offers some constructive proposals on hostages, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction. Yet it is marred by an unmistakable colonial framework: Gaza is to be overseen by Trump himself, with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other outsiders cast as trustees for Palestinian governance, while Palestinian statehood is deferred indefinitely.

George Mitchell, the great US advocate for the Northern Ireland peace agreement, described diplomacy as 700 days of failure and one of success. In Gaza, tragically, there have been 730 days of failure and none of success. Indeed, the destruction, the death toll and the spillover of the conflict into other countries is a monument to shame diplomacy and what remains of international law. Arguably, it is the profession's lowest point since 1939.

When Vladimir Putin met with Donald Trump in Alaska in August, one prominent strand of social-media commentary had nothing to do with the possibility of a deal to end Russia's war against Ukraine (the meeting's ostensible purpose). Rather, it turned on the question of whether Putin-who faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, stemming from Russia's wartime actions-could conceivably be arrested when he stepped foot on U.S. soil.

'Now is the time to escalate pressure on Israel', said the party's spokesperson on foreign affairs

More than 30 legal experts have called on the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to bar Israel and its clubs from competitions over the atrocities in Gaza. The letter, addressed to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin on Thursday, said banning Israel is imperative, citing a report by United Nations investigators that confirmed Israel is carrying out a genocide against Palestinians.

A Forever War is a powerful investigation into the war on Gaza, challenging Israel's response to the Hamas-led attacks in October 2023. Global condemnation of Israel's war on Gaza recently echoed around the United Nations, where many states continued to label it genocide. Yet Israel has largely ignored international opinion, even pressure from the United States. With a ceasefire now on the table just days before the second anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, this film examines

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said his country's navy will join Italy in sending warships to protect the Global Sumud Flotilla, which has come under drone attack in international waters en route to deliver aid to Gaza. Speaking to reporters in New York on Wednesday, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Sanchez said international law must be respected and the citizens of 45 nations participating in the aid mission had every right to sail in the Mediterranean unharmed.

Navi Pillay, chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, made the announcement of the UN inquiry to Al Jazeera on Tuesday. We've identified the president [Isaac Herzog], the Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and the former minister of defence [Yoav Gallant] based on their statements and the orders that they've given, Pillay said in an interview.

This week, Israel launched an unprecedented airstrike on Qatar's capital, Doha, claiming it was targeting senior Hamas leaders. Qatar, a key mediator between Hamas and Israel, condemned the strike as a violation of international law and branded it an act of state terrorism. How has Israel been able to act with such impunity? And what does this attack mean for the future of ceasefire negotiations in Gaza?

If he wins his fall election, Zohran Mamdani would order New York's police department to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu in the event that the Israeli prime minister ever traveled there, the city's leading mayoral candidate said in a recent interview. Mamdani the Democratic nominee in the 4 November election alleged to the New York Times on Thursday that Netanyahu was a war criminal who was committing genocide with Israel's military campaign in Gaza, according to a report published by the outlet on Friday.