» Lesen Sie diesen Artikel auf Deutsch
Today, there is often talk of the erosion of the international legal order; some even speak of its collapse. But has there ever been order in the world? The answer is sobering: no. Talk of »world disorder« reveals mainly the perspective of privileged societies that have lived in safety for decades. Many people in the Global South have always experienced war and oppression.
International law has never been a neutral set of rules suspended above political interests. As early as the 19th century, it served European powers to legitimize colonial rule. Ambivalence also characterized the postwar period and the founding of the United Nations in 1945. While the Charter invoked world peace, the right to exercise a veto, reserved for the major powers in the UN Security Council, cemented a hierarchy that often places geopolitical interests above universal principles.
Despite their commitment to universal human rights, the Weste rn powers too secured their interests in the postwar era through brutal colonial wars and the suppression of colonial freedom movements. These historical double standards were clearly evident during the Cold War in violent interventions in the »Global South« – for example, in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1956, the Congo in 1961, and Chile in 1973 –where claims to power and unimpeded access to natural resources outweighed the proclaimed democratic values.
»The often-decried lack of enforcement is inherent in the system.«
The often-decried lack of enforcement is inherent in the system, since, in the absence of supranational coercive power, effectiveness always depends on the political will of many actors. After the Cold War, hopes briefly arose that an all-embracing constitutional framework for world politics could be instituted according to liberal-Western standards. But this illusion came to an abrupt end not least due to the events following September 11, 2001, the U.S. interventions in Iraq in violation of international law, and the U.S. global torture system.
The Erosion and Crisis of Credibility
What is new, however, is the intensity with which international law is being attacked today. The second Trump administration is pursuing a course of »Neanderthal realism« (New York Times), in which the law of the jungle is increasingly becoming an open doctrine. The violent abduction of Maduro on January 3, 2026, constituted a fundamental flouting of the prohibition on the use of force and of state sovereignty, despite the fact that the Venezuelan regime had been condemned for its human rights violations. It undermines the diplomatic immunity of heads of state and the equality of states under international law.
At the same time, the escalation in Iran has reached a new level. The massive military strikes by the U.S. and Israel against Iranian infrastructure are almost unanimously deemed unlawful by international law experts. Without a mandate from the UN Security Council, there is no basis for invoking the right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Rather, this constitutes a dangerous expansion of »preemptive self-defense,« which – once accepted as the norm – opens the floodgates for arbitrary military strikes by any state.
The international community faces yet another severe test due to the destruction of Gaza and the loss of many lives there. South Africa’s indictment of Israeli genocide, brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2024 and representing a historic application of international law by a key state of the Global South, documents systematic violations of international humanitarian law. Together with the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), South Africa’s campaign at least led to the two most important international courts clearly speaking out against Israel’s violations of international law. Not only does Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine violate the prohibition on the use of force; it also has involved war crimes on a grand scale: namely, the targeted shelling of civilian infrastructure and documented atrocities. The fact that Russia uses its veto to block legal consequences highlights the structural paralysis of the UN’s main bodies.
»Berlin is openly applying double standards, which are recognized as such by the entire world.«
Another new development is the geopolitical constellation in which European states, particularly Germany, find themselves – one which forces them to define their positions. China has become a global economic power, and regional powers such as Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, and Indonesia no longer cooperate exclusively with the West. In this unprecedented situation, Berlin is openly applying double standards, which are recognized as such by the entire world. While the German government rightly condemns Russia’s violation of international law, its reaction to the actions of the U.S. and Israel is strikingly weak. In February 2025, Friedrich Merz ruled out the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even though an ICC arrest warrant has been outstanding against him since November 2024, which Germany, as a member state, would be required to enforce. Merz also downplayed Maduro’s abduction as »complex« and avoided criticizing the U.S.
But international law is indivisible: Those who unquestioningly accept the right to preventive self-defense in partners like Israel or the U.S. lose the moral and legal authority to credibly criticize the same behavior in adversaries like Russia or China. When Germany intervened in the ICJ proceedings against Israel to broadly refute the genocide allegation without addressing the dire humanitarian situation under international law as consistently as it has done in the case of Ukraine, its behavior fuels criticism from states in the Global South. The latter insist that human rights and international law only matter to Germany and other Western countries when they serve Western interests. This selective outrage undermines the foundation of the international order just as much as the actual breach of law, as it discredits the law itself as an instrument.
The State of Human Rights
International law has nonetheless evolved into a dynamic field in recent decades: trials against heads of state or corporations like Shell have ratcheted up expectations for the justice system. Yet disillusionment often follows close on its heels: court rulings and arrest warrants cannot immediately end ongoing wars, nor can they transform fossil fuel industries overnight. As in national law, investigations often come too late, and the judiciary acts too selectively in the face of blockades by major powers.
»Survivors are evolving from objects of state violence into subjects of legal proceedings and political actors.«
Nevertheless, developments over the past 30 years mark a significant improvement. Through the principle of universal jurisdiction, victims of the most serious crimes are being given a platform in third countries for the first time. The Koblenz Syria trials (2020–2022) impressively demonstrated how survivors evolved from objects of state violence into subjects of legal proceedings and political actors who demanded not only justice but also the restoration of their dignity. By now this mentality has even penetrated the global economy. Victims of factory disasters, such as the one in Karachi, Pakistan (2012), gained a hearing for the first time in courts of the home countries of the parent companies. That trend is increasingly breaking down the legal architecture of capital and breaking the silence surrounding exploitative supply chains.
These struggles for accountability run like a common thread through all areas of law. In classical international criminal law, the question remains unresolved whether individual convictions against specific generals or statesmen suffice to affect entrenched state apparatuses of violence in their entirety. As a parallel problem, economic law is dominated by the »Code of Capital« (Katharina Pistor), which systematically prioritizes property rights over human rights. However, new regulatory frameworks, such as Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, are now forcing courts to look beyond national borders at the global obligations of powerful entities and to link economic power with legal responsibility.
But right now, it’s climate law that is undergoing the most radical transformation: While climate protection was long considered a secondary concern, the judiciary today is addressing the destruction of the biosphere as a fundamental crime against future generations. Significant recent milestones include decisions by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to classify climate protection as ius cogens – as mandatory, universally applicable international law, comparable to the prohibition of torture.
The decisive impetus for this change often comes from the Global South and civil society networks. Whether it is Indian NGOs that fought for the right to food or island nations like Vanuatu that pressed the ICJ to clarify climate obligations – a globalization from below has emerged. These social movements use the law as a tool to expose the dark side of globalization and debunk the neoliberal myth of market self-regulation.
While the selectivity of the judiciary remains a structural problem, these developments show that the fight is worth it. Newer judicial practices offer the possibility of holding even the most powerful heads of state or corporations accountable. They no longer can act with complete impunity. The law thus becomes an indispensable bulwark against the arbitrariness of the present.
Where is international law headed?
Despite all the crises, a world without UN institutions would be noticeably worse off. In recent years, the General Assembly has demonstrated that it can serve as a platform for the international community when the Security Council is deadlocked. It has provided smaller states, NGOs, and affected parties with a forum to advance their causes through the language and framework of the law.
In an era of global upheaval, it is essential not only to administer the core tenets of international law –from prohibitions on aggression, genocide, and torture to the right to self-determination – as mere formal norms, but to defend them resolutely. These principles form the last bulwark against a return to the »law of the jungle.« Yet a credible defense requires not only rhetorical commitments to a »rules-based order« but also the elimination of double standards. If Germany and Europe invoke human rights only where it is politically expedient for their alliances, they themselves call into question the universal validity of these rules.
The effective enforcement of these rules requires new coalitions. In a world where Europe is losing influence, the opportunity lies in alliances with the Global South – as partners on equal footing. Instead of being pushed around by authoritarian forces, progressive actors must view the international rule of law and the demand for a new, just global economic order as active instruments of change. When government policy remains blocked, civil society is called upon to show solidarity across borders with actors in Africa and Latin America. Only if we succeed in continuing to use international law as a real instrument for social and ecological justice will it remain a living force capable of tangibly improving the lives of all.