Last week’s passing of UNSC Resolution 2728 saw that global body demand an immediate ceasefire in the latest Israeli-Hamas war until at least the end of Ramadan, which was made possible by the US abstaining from the vote instead of vetoing it like usual. The UNSC’s resolution are legally binding, which Russia recently reminded everyone, yet Israel continues flouting the latest one. This shows the limits of international law since there’s no interest among the UNSC in militarily enforcing this particular demand.
In theory, the UNSC would lead global efforts to force Israel into compliance, but that won’t happen in this case since none of its permanent members have any interest in employing military means against this nuclear-armed state. This observation exposes a politically incorrect fact about international law, namely that nuclear-armed countries are able to flout it without fear of being militarily punished. The worst that could happen are sanctions, but the US is unlikely to agree to a UNSC resolution on that.
The only reason why it abstained from the latest one was as part of Biden’s electioneering spectacle aimed at signaling displeasure with Israel. This built upon his Gaza aid policy from earlier in March and his political endorsement of Schumer’s call for regime change shortly thereafter. These three interconnected moves were meant to appeal to the Democrats’ pro-Palestinian base while also advancing his team’s goal of replacing Bibi’s conservative-nationalist government with liberal-globalists.
Under no circumstances will the US do anything that could credibly be interpreted as impeding Israel’s ability to “defend itself”, which is the pretext upon which it’s collectively punishing the Palestinians throughout the course of the existential conflict that it decided to fight with Hamas after 7 October. Enshrining a sanctions regime into international law via a relevant UNSC resolution would obligate the US to enforce it lest the failure to do so risks discrediting similar regimes against other countries.
The fact of the matter is that nuclear-armed countries are indeed “exceptional” in the sense that the UNSC is reluctant to enforce political demands that are promulgated against them by their global body. Moreover, their special relationship with some of the UNSC’s permanent members – in this case Israel’s with the US but one could also talk about Pakistan’s with China for example – means that follow-up sanctions for noncompliance are politically unrealistic, which further reinforces their sense of impunity.
UNSC resolutions are therefore legally binding on paper, but they’re purely symbolic in practice since only unilateral efforts or those from so-called “coalitions of the willing” could possibly be applied to coerce into doing what’s demanded, and even the success of those can’t be taken for granted. The reality of international law is that it’s only ever successfully applied against non-nuclear countries that lack the military capabilities to deter forcible means from being used for coercing them into compliance.
This politically incorrect insight shows that the military-technological hierarchy in International Relations extends to the sphere of international law as well. Those countries that can defend themselves from physical threats can also defend themselves from political and economic ones too since the last two can’t be militarily enforced without risking unacceptable consequences for anyone that dares to try. UN reforms can’t rectify this state of affairs since it’s inextricably connected to the way that the world works.
