The status quo is grim. The very idea that the rights of individuals (including the very basic right to life) are outweighed by political considerations and attempts to say the law in way that doesn’t cause inconvenience to the perpetrator and its allies, poisons the heart.

The current way in which international law is arranged is deeply disturbing not only because of the ineffectiveness of its institutional arrangements when great powers interests are at stake, but also in the way it discriminated between individuals when their rights are at stake (e.g, Ukraine- Gaza). We need a better system that doesn’t treat (certain) humans as numbers/ mass/ statistics, or maybe we just deserve this system.

The situation could have been less apocalyptic if the UNSC was able to function effectively when an imminent threat to Intl peace and security is established, however with the right to Veto we all know that’s not possible as long as the interest of one of the veto holder is at stake. Referring the issue to the ICJ is already so complicated, kudos to SA that they manage to overcome the institutional hurdle, but even if the ICJ’s jurisdiction is established, and the formal requirements are fulfilled, there is no way to enforce the ICJ’s “supposedly binding” order without an order from the UNSC or the state’s consent-both of which are not possible in the case of Gaza. Besides this internal contradictions/indeterminacy of the law, what blows the mind is that some rogue states are more likely to act in full impunity than others in a system that is supposedly based on “sovereign equality”. “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”.