What is International Law, and why was it established?
Formalised by organisations like the United Nations, the purpose of International Law was initially to make trade deals between states workable but, and this is what interests me, also to protect us, the people of the world, from rogue governments. It is supposed to force states to give attention to peace, justice and human rights.
Palestine
During the last few years, as we’ve witnessed the terrible carnage in Gaza, South Africa, along with other countries mostly in the global south, have called on the United Nations to invoke the Genocide Convention, to force compliance with international law for the sake of the peoples of Palestine and the other Western Asian countries Israel has been attacking.
In public conversations though, many citizens seem to be judging the situation according to whether they support Israel or not and those who do, appear to assume that we, the anti-genocide campaigners, are acting out of support for the Palestinian State, or even of Hamas, the government of Gaza. In many, many conversations, I’ve found it astoundingly difficult to bring conversations round to the issue of human rights, that surely should and must apply to any nation under attack.
It does not occur to them that international law should matter to them.
Here are War on Want, being pretty sure a genocide is going on, and should be called out…
Venezuela
And now, 2026 opens with yet another of those situations. After a long military build-up and a series of attacks on Venezuelan ships, Trump’s USA has bombed Caracas, gone in and kidnapped Maduro, the head of state, and his wife – and a startlingly large number of the resultant conversations on social media seem to consist of people formulating opinions based on whether they liked Maduro’s government or not.
I’ve seen dozens of journalists trying to corner politicians into statements about the legality or otherwise of Trump’s acts. What is this about? How can an unprovoked attack and a kidnapping possibly be legal?
But as with Palestine, the vast majority of UK politicians find themselves unable to say whether international law has been broken. Here is Emily Thornberry, doing an unusual amount of thinking. Presumably, front bench politicians just think she’s being old fashioned…
So what can we do?
I’m not a ‘Laura Norder’, but I am far, far more concerned that we should preserve the International Law that is there to protect us all than I am about anyone’s opinion about any particular government or politician. I’m as sure as I can be that most of our politicians have avoided saying anything definite about Trump’s very obvious law-breaking for the same reason they wouldn’t admit to the genocide in Gaza until they were forced to – they were worried that admitting to law-breaking might get them, or their political allies, into trouble, and they thought that more important than preserving the conventions that are there to protect all of us.
I know politicians always have broken the law but they used to at least pretend they weren’t doing so, which kept the atrocities down a bit. We should be building on that situation, not charging full pelt into lawlessness. The fact that politicians are now quite happily admitting that RAF bases and equipment were a part of Trump’s latest acts of piracy is another large step into danger. It makes our country an obvious target for any Russian retaliation.
That’s why I hope as many people as possible will stand with me now, no matter what ‘side’ they’re on in this or that conflict, and demand that our politicians accept the rule of law.
Here is my letter to my MP – feel free to copy it, or write your own.
Click here to read ‘Dear Helena Dollimore…’
Here are my notes from the excellent Zoom meeting, ‘No War in Venezuela’. At the end of each section of notes, there’s a ‘things to do’ list. Please pick one, and act!
And finally, Hastings, our local PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign) have their AGM on the 17th January. Let’s all go along, and talk about what we can do about all these murderous, rogue politicians.
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Kay Green 