Interview , | 03/30/2026 : “People’s eyes are open, and there is no way back”

We are currently witnessing the violation of fundamental norms of international law in real time — in Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan, Iran, and in many other places. At the same time, we are confronted with an international order shaped by powerful states, economic elites, and an unequal distribution of resources. Can the law serve as an instrument for weaker parties under such conditions? What is left of the idea of universal criminal jurisdiction if it ends at geopolitical borders? Or does international law retain its normative force because even powers that violate it must still adhere to it? And would it make a difference if we reimagined international law from the perspective of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles? Lucas Reinehr and Franziska Albrecht from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLS) speak with legal expert Chantal Meloni from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) about her experiences.

RLS: International law conceptualizes itself as a universal order. At the same time, it emerged in the context of imperial expansion and global power asymmetries. To what extent were international law and the multilateral institutions of the 20th century shaped by imperialist powers? And how do these influences continue to persist today?

Chantal Meloni: The relationship between international law’s claim to universalism and its imperialist character has long been a central and recurring question. It is no secret that international law and the multilateral institutions of the 20th century were shaped by imperialist powers. Their influence continues to persist today in globally asymmetric power structures. 

The United Nations was created on the basis of a universal democratic inspiration, admirably represented by the opening lines of the preamble to the UN Charter: “We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in this generation has brought untold sorrow to mankind…”  But the United Nations is also the political crystallization of a victorious military coalition. Undoubtedly, it reflects a specific Western political and cultural perspective. Today, elements of these historical power structures are still evident in institutions such as the UN Security Council, the composition of which reflects old but enduring global power imbalances.

Therefore, while it is true that international law has colonial and imperial roots, it has also evolved into a system that has contributed to self-determination and greater global participation.

Because of its historical context international law should be viewed critically, keeping historical power imbalances in mind. Some of the principles of international law contain ethnocentric assumptions, and the idea of “universal” values has sometimes been used to cover up domination or exploitation. At the same time, it would be too simplistic to view international law simply as an instrument of imperial power. What would the world look like without it? In the 20th century in particular, international law became an important framework for decolonization. It is precisely through institutions such as the United Nations that international law helped establishing fundamental principles and rights, such as the right to self-determination, which provided colonized peoples with a basis to claim independence and sovereignty. Bodies such as the UN General Assembly also offer a more pluralistic structure than the UN Security Council, because every state has an equal vote, allowing a broader range of states to participate in shaping international norms and values.

Therefore, while it is true that international law has colonial and imperial roots, it has also evolved into a system that has contributed to self-determination and greater global participation. It is important to be aware of its foundations and what influenced it, but international law has also played, and continues to play, a crucial role in shaping a more inclusive international order.

Many advances in international law are the result of collective struggles. Yet they unfold within an international order shaped by powerful states, economic elites, and unequal resources. Can law be an instrument for the weaker parties under such conditions? And from your experience at ECCHR, are there specific struggles that illustrate how legal intervention can actually shift power relations?

By definition collective struggles, like liberation movements, involve challenging those in power. And yes, these struggles unfold precisely because the reality of the world we live in is shaped by those in power in unequal ways in order to maintain and reinforce their power. This is true both at the national and the international level. In this context, conflicts arise, violence is used to silence the demands of the people, and the fight for rights often, turned into armed struggle, especially in the past. We must be aware that fighting for freedom has always involved violence – just think of the Algerian struggle for liberation. 

But while in the past there seemed to be no alternative to fighting at the cost of human lives, this is not true anymore. International law has provided a framework that gives recognition to the demands of those who fight for their rights against oppression by structures of power. Law can be a tool in this struggle, exactly because it has been shaped through conflicts in which weaker actors fought against stronger ones in uneven conflicts. As an instrument for the affirmation of equal rights, law can provide a language and a framework that empower weaker actors in their struggle.

International law clearly provides a framework that empowers the less powerful in their demands for justice.

The Chagos Island provide one example, where Mauritius managed to get the islands back from the UK in 2024, following a long legal struggle that saw the International Court of Justice ruling in Mauritius’s favor against the UK in a 2019 Advisory Opinion. That was a strong example of a much smaller state challenging a far more powerful one and ultimately achieving its goal. In the past years there were a number of states, usually seen as “weaker”, that went to court attempting to assert not only their specific legal demands, but also the restoration of international order in the face of blatant violations by powerful states more broadly. More recently there is Ukraine, which brought a case against the Russian Federation at the ICJ in 2022, in order to expose the invasion of its territory as illegal (an invasion which had been “justified” by Russia under the pretext of an ongoing genocide against Russophone minorities in Ukraine). But we have seen also relatively small states take international erga omnes obligations seriously, bringing cases before the ICJ in order to restore international law principles in cases of egregious international crimes not directly involving them, that were of concern for the entire international community, nevertheless. Examples include the case against Myanmar brought to the ICJ by Gambia, alleging genocide against the Rohingya population; of South Africa against Israel, on charges of genocide against the Palestinian population; and of Nicaragua against Germany, for the state’s alleged complicity in the genocide as well as war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza.

What the results of such cases will be remains to be seen. Obviously, these legal efforts do not always pay off. But international law clearly provides a framework that empowers the less powerful in their demands for justice.

Affirming individual criminal responsibility for crimes that involve state apparatuses and higher political and military echelons, is evidently one of the most revolutionary tools of our times.

We also need to keep in mind that we have a very powerful tool at our disposal as part of the public international law system that was developed since Nuremberg: international criminal law. Affirming individual criminal responsibility for crimes that involve state apparatuses and higher political and military echelons, is evidently one of the most revolutionary tools of our times. In this regard, legal interventions aimed at assessing the individual responsibility of powerful actors are a potential game changer in the struggle for justice. The International Criminal Court, which was established through an international treaty, the Rome Statute of 1998, and began operating in 2002, is the main actor in this regard. 

Over the years, the ECCHR has filed a number of “Article 15 Communications”, as they are called under the Rome Statute, that extensively and thoroughly analyze the commission of international crimes in different conflicts, demanding the ICC Office of the Prosecutor to open criminal investigations. We have filed communications regarding crimes committed in Colombia against human rights defenders, torture and killings of detainees in Iraq by UK forces during the military occupation, and crimes against migrants in Libya involving European responsibilities, exports of arms from European companies to Saudi Arabia that contributed to crimes against civilians in Yemen. For many years I have also been supporting Palestinian human rights organizations with submitting thoroughly documented cases to the Court on a wide range of systematic crimes by Israel in occupied Palestinian territory. 

We have always worked in close coordination with the victims and affected communities of these crimes, on behalf of whom we are acting. Documenting violations and demanding justice by using an instrument that recognizes the rights of victims is highly significant. These interventions do not always trigger an investigation, but they often set some form of positive engagement in motion that empowers the victims in another way.

Since it was founded 20 years ago the International Criminal Court has almost exclusively prosecuted perpetrators from the Global South. When it began to target Israeli and U.S. officials, Washington threatened sanctions, Israel ignored arrest warrants, and Western governments either remained silent or minimized the issue. What is left of the idea of universal criminal jurisdiction when it stops at geopolitical boundaries —and how does the ECCHR react when the court it relies on is itself under political attack?

Criticism that the ICC focused too much on Africa in its first decade is well known and of course valid, but it is also important to note that most cases came via state- or self-referrals, so the ICC took on the cases it was able to. Indeed, the Court needs states’ cooperation to operate, and cooperation can only be secured in very specific circumstances that are often dependent on geo-political relationships. That is part of the reason why there has been more attention on situations in the Global South, but there is a contextual reason for this imbalance, which is very much related to the Global North’s interests and its ability to influence the work of the Court. Nevertheless, it is clear that in recent years the Court has proven its independence and its strength, by becoming relevant in the context of ongoing international conflicts involving superpowers and permanent members of the UN Security Council. 

Despite its aspirations, the ICC cannot exercise universal jurisdiction; rather, it is a court that is based on very precise jurisdictional rules, linked to the territory where the crimes were committed or to the nationality of those who committed the crimes (the only exception being when there is a UN Security Council resolution, referring a situation of commission of crimes to the ICC, in which case no jurisdictional link is required). In other words, for the ICC to have jurisdiction, either the crime must be committed on the territory of an ICC state-party, or the perpetrator must be a national of an ICC state-party. It is important to highlight the word “or”, because one of the most important results achieved in Rome was that a majority of the countries that participated in the 1998 conference pushed back against attempts by US and others to limit jurisdiction of the Court even further by demanding jurisdiction be based on the cumulative requirement that the crimes are committed on the territory and by nationals of a state-party.

Thus, the ICC can investigate and prosecute international crimes under the Rome Statute – such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression (for which the jurisdiction is even more limited) – only if there is a jurisdictional link to a state-party, unless there is a request by the UN Security Council. This happened only twice, in 2005 and 2011,  with regard to respectively Darfur/Sudan and Libya, situations which were referred to the Court through UN Security Council resolutions.

The ECCHR has a clear position on this, which is that ICC decisions, including arrest warrants, must not only be respected but also implemented.

We must understand that the attitude of states vis-à-vis the ICC is very different and should be assessed differently depending on whether they are party to the treaty or not. Some powerful states such as China, India, Israel, Russia or the US chose not to be part of it, as they oppose the very idea of international jurisdiction and do not want to relinquish any portion of their sovereignty on criminal matters. They are basically unwilling to be subjected to any external control and do not allow any supranational international institution, let alone a judicial body like an international criminal court, to investigate their policies and behaviour. Nevertheless, because of the rules on jurisdiction that I was mentioning before, they – or more precisely: their citizens – can in fact be investigated by the ICC, since it is sufficient that crimes are committed on the territory of a state-party. That is why it’s possible for Russian president Vladimir Putin to be the target of an arrest warrant because of crimes committed in Ukraine, which is a state party to the ICC. Similarly, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the target of another arrest warrant issued by the ICC, because the alleged crimes were committed on Palestinian territory, and Palestine is a recognized ICC member since 2015. 

It should come as no surprise that there is violent opposition to the Court by these states. As Israel is not a state-party, the question is not so much why Israel is ignoring the arrest warrant on its Prime Minister, but rather why other states that are parties to the Rome Statute continue engaging with an internationally wanted war criminal like Netanyahu. The ECCHR has a clear position on this, which is that ICC decisions, including arrest warrants, must not only be respected but also implemented. Thus, if Germany, or Italy, or any other European country that is a member of the Court, had the opportunity execute Netanyahu’s arrest warrant, they must do so, otherwise they would be breaching their international obligations. 

States are increasingly justifying the use of force based on their interests rather than international legal norms — think of the United States, which preached democracy and human rights for years, but now openly pursues its interests in oil and rare earths. Is this the end of rhetorical excuses — or is it a sign that international law retains its normative force, because even powers that violate it still act on a field defined by international law?

Breaching internation law means breaching international law, regardless of whether a state tries to justify it by claiming its interest are violated, which might include, as we see today in the cases of the attacks against Venezuela and – even more dramatically – Iran, a mix of economic and humanitarian reasons. 

From my point of view, the fact that states that act unlawfully attempt to justify their actions based on some sort of seemingly permissible reasons is interesting because it reveals that there is still a certain regard for the system, that still provides a framework of reference as intended. But it is also muddying the waters: today the fact that Iran is ruled by a brutal regime, which indeed is, is used as an argument to justify the military intervention by Israel and the US. Many people seem to be confused about this, but as we at ECCHR have also immediately affirmed, the fact that the Iranian regime committed atrocious crimes against its people (which should be brought to justice, possibly also in Germany, under the VStGB, the Völkerstragesetzbuch, the Code of Crimes against International Law), is in no way a justification for what is actually an act of aggression in violation of the rules on the use of force enshrined in the UN Charter in article 2(4). Similar considerations apply to the attacks on Venezuela and its vessels. 

The weakness of the international system that we are witnessing today has ancient roots. It lies in states’ stubborn resistance to relinquishing their military sovereignty.

Beyond very confused (and in the case of President Trump even erratic) statements by the US leaders, as well as Israel’s or Russia’s ones, it is clear that these states are acting in blatant violation of the UN Charter, merely based on their national interests, such as control over territories and resources. In the face of such an escalation of violence the question we need to ask is what is the role of our European leaders today? Third countries are clearly duty-bound to refuse recognizing these illegal actions and to comply with their legal duties under the Rome Statute. This sometimes involves reconsidering economic and military ties of a country with certain allies, which is hard to achieve politically. In the case of Germany, this is particularly evident with regard to its strong partner, Israel, for obvious historical reasons. But the respect for international law and the serious commitment to justice that Germany has demonstrated for the past decades would logically call for a different approach, one refuses to continue with business as usual in the face of allegations of serious international crimes, such as the expansion of illegal settlements and unlawful annexation of occupied territory in the West Bank, or even ongoing genocide in Gaza.

We are witnessing the violation of fundamental norms of international law  in real time — in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan —while the institutions nominally in charge are gridlocked by veto powers, look the other way, or respond too slowly to provide protection. Is this an exceptional situation, triggered by particular political circumstances? Or does it reveal structural limitations of a system that has never truly been equipped with enforcement mechanisms against powerful states?

The weakness of the international system that we are witnessing today has ancient roots. It lies in states’ stubborn resistance to relinquishing their military sovereignty. While at the domestic level, within a national community, the transition to the modern state entailed the expropriation of private violence in favor of a central authority, at the international level this devolution has remained incomplete. 

Historically, the attempt to regulate this force marks the transition from the 1648 Westphalia model at the end of the Thirty Years’ War — through which Europe fragmented into large nation-states exercising absolute sovereignty within their own territories — to the 1945 San Francisco model, which sought to establish a higher order through the UN. As international law scholars emphasize, however, this founding moment of modern international law should not be mythologized. The United Nations was made up of, first and foremost, the Allied powers against Nazi fascism, who, after winning the war, enshrined a general prohibition on the threat or use of force in international relations “against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations” in article 2(4) of the Charter. That ban was already included in the 1928 Briand-Kellogg Pact, but that was a very weak agreement, essentially lacking any sanctions, and did not prevent Western states from pursuing their colonial ambitions.

International law has always faced inherent structural limitations.

As already noted, the new rules of 1945 did not apply equally to everyone either. That system reflected a rigid hierarchy. Many countries did not take part in the founding conference of the UN, an organization which was a sort of club run primarily by the victors: the international community produced a legal framework that delegated power not to a democratic authority, but to a military directorate.

These structural limitations of international law and its system are very well known, and experts largely agree that this is the case. International law has always faced inherent structural limitations. The breaches and violations of international norms in the situations you mentioned — Sudan, Palestine, Ukraine, but many more could be added — do indeed call into question the validity of the entire system. The key change over the last few years is probably the increasing openness with which states violate international norms. However, international crimes have always been committed. Multiple severe crises have sometimes occurred simultaneously, in the past three decades, and some are still ongoing, including conflicts in Africa, Colombia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar. And of course, both the Ukraine and Palestine situations did not only start now but are conflicts that have been ongoing and unresolved for many years or decades.

In some cases, the UN Security Council was able to play a role including by instituting some ad hoc criminal tribunals such as the ICTY and the ICTR, in charge of prosecuting war crimes and ethnic cleansing in former-Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the Rwandan genocide of 1994 respectively. But in most cases the Security Council was probably ineffective. Given the structural limitations and enforcement challenges of the UN, sometimes the international community does take action through individual states pushing back against the violations, as seen in cases now pending at the International Court of Justice, of South Africa against Israel or Gambia against Myanmar. 

More often though, the incredibly hard job of pushing for justice, namely denouncing the commission of crimes, remains in the hands of the victims. Protesting against the use of unlawful force and violence or triggering the initiation of international proceedings: This is the work that we at the ECCHR and our partners have been doing all over these years either directly, by filing legal interventions, and or indirectly by supporting the work of other courageous human rights defenders internationally.

To wrap up our conversation I have a fundamental question: Do we need to write a different history of international law — one that does not begin with Westphalia and Grotius, but with the Haitian Revolution, the anti-colonial struggles around the world, and the survivors of Hiroshima, who fought for the development of humanitarian law? What would it mean to think about international law from this perspective — and does it change the question of what is still possible today?

We are certainly in a moment of fracture, as the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney eloquently put it in a recent speech in Davos. The system has revealed its deep fragility, and we will not emerge from this historical moment in the same shape that we entered it only three years ago. Beyond the shock of the 2022 Russian aggression against Ukraine, which we were largely unprepared for, I believe that there is a pre-Gaza and there is a post-Gaza scenario in our international legal order. Because Gaza has not only revealed the abyss of brutality of  military intervention, but it also exploded the system, exposing all its contradictions. People are aware of this; their eyes are open, and there is no way back. 

But it is even more important to keep pressing our governments and political leaders to ensure their decisions and policies - at both the national and the international level - are based on the necessary respect for international law principles and human rights.

International law can be reshaped and reinterpreted. At the same time, it is obviously hard to establish a new legal order, and it will take time to rebuild from the ashes. What we can do as ordinary citizens is to continue criticizing and challenging the Western and colonial frameworks that have traditionally shaped how international law is understood and how international justice mechanisms work. Certainly, one way to do so is by engaging more deeply with critical and post-colonial perspectives, which have been showing the way forward for a long time but have perhaps remained at the margins of European discourse. In this sense, studying the Haitian Revolution that you mention can reveal how the universal demands for freedom by oppressed populations have also shaped European values.

But it is even more important to keep pressing our governments and political leaders to ensure their decisions and policies - at both the national and the international level - are based on the necessary respect for international law principles and human rights; and we must hold them accountable if they fail to do so. Our duties are clear: civilians must be protected, even - and even more so - in times of war. All states must not only refrain from violating such principles but also ensure they are respected by others. The consequences for international relations are obviously far reaching and it is time to take this legal obligation seriously, in particular in relation to the business of arms exports. Too many states are simply ignoring their legal obligations in this regard, and the courts at the domestic level are unfortunately proving to be too weak and perhaps not independent enough to hold decision makers accountable, which deprives the victims of any redress. Nevertheless, the system of protection that was agreed upon after the Second World War is universal. Human rights are universal. It cannot be otherwise, as Nelson Mandela has eloquently reminded us: our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of other oppressed people.