The carnage in Gaza has not only shattered lives and landscapes but also exposed a seismic crisis in the global legal order. Far from being a remote regional conflict, Israel’s war on Gaza has become a crucible for testing the very foundations of international law, humanitarian norms, and Western political credibility. The legal implications are profound, not only for Palestinians but for the viability of a system meant to constrain the worst impulses of state power.

For decades, the West, especially the US, has projected itself as the vanguard of a “rules-based international order,” upholding norms developed in the aftermath of World War II to prevent the very atrocities now unfolding in Gaza. Yet, since October 7, 2023, those ideals have been systemically undermined by the selective application of legal principles, double standards in enforcement, and a political climate increasingly hostile to international law. The structural contradictions between strategic alliances and legal obligations are now impossible to ignore.

The evidence is staggering : more than 50,000 people killed—including over 13,000 children, at a rate of 55 per day; over 70% of infrastructure destroyed, including 84% of Gaza’s health facilities and 92% of all housing units; virtually every school and university reduced to rubble; and nearly two million people forcibly displaced. This is devastation beyond imagination. Yet despite these clear violations of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter, powerful Western states continue to shield Israel from legal consequences—vetoing UN resolutions, delaying or undermining International Criminal Court proceedings, and providing unconditional military support. As the Atlantic Council notes, regardless of Israel’s claims to have ended its occupation of Gaza, “international law maintains that effective control, not formal declarations, determines whether occupation continues”—making legal accountability unavoidable (Atlantic Council, 2024).

Amnesty International, in its 2024 annual report, warns that we are witnessing “a watershed moment for international law,” with “flagrant rule-breaking by governments and corporate actors” undermining the very foundations of global legal norms. The report bluntly states: “Israel’s flagrant disregard for international law is compounded by the failures of its allies to stop the indescribable civilian bloodshed meted out in Gaza” (Amnesty International, 2024). The report places Israel’s actions within a broader trend of “unchecked militarism and impunity,” exacerbated by the reluctance of powerful states to apply consistent standards.

This abdication of legal responsibility is not merely political hypocrisy; it constitutes a structural failure of the international legal system. As legal scholar Rebecca Ingber writes in Just Security, “international law is becoming a third rail in American politics today” [Ingber, 2024], and U.S. courts now often deny it any interpretive or decision-making role. Meanwhile, the executive branch has amassed near-exclusive authority over whether and how international law applies. Koh’s analysis, echoed in Ingber’s critique, exposes the erosion of checks and balances in U.S. war powers and treaty obligations—a collapse that resonates in the global silence over Gaza (Koh, 2024).

At the heart of this legal unraveling is the tension between international law and the so-called “rules-based order”, a term championed by Western governments, especially the US, but lacking any clear legal definition. As Matias Spektor noted in his 2024 Breyer Lecture, this framework is “empirically inaccurate and politically dangerous” because it falsely portrays the West as the moral steward of international law while ignoring its role in undermining the very norms it claims to uphold (Spektor, 2024). He adds that the narrative of the West as a “law-abiding community confronting lawless others” ignores its own complicity in undermining treaties and legal institutions for geopolitical gain.

The Gaza crisis has also challenged the legal vocabulary available to describe mass atrocities. South Africa’s genocide case before the International Court of Justice is just one example. As noted by contributors to the Opinio Juris symposium, current legal categories often fail to capture the lived realities of targeted communities. Concepts like “domicide” – the destruction of home as a legal harm and “spacioicide” – the systematic erasure of inhabitable space—are now being invoked to articulate the unique nature of Israeli actions in Gaza (Opinio Juris, 2024). Contributors argue that if international law cannot name or prevent the destruction of an entire society’s ability to live, it has failed its most basic promise.

Legal institutions remain paralyzed by procedural hurdles and evidentiary thresholds ill-suited to the complex, ongoing nature of settler-colonial violence. As a contributor to EJIL:Talk! aptly put it, ” The discursive limits of international law are laid bare when it is unable—or unwilling—to name the atrocity it seeks to prohibit” (Burgis-Kasthala and Masetti Placci, 2024). Even the South African ICJ petition, supported by states across the Global South, was met with Western discomfort and media deflection, revealing a deep discomfort with international law when it targets Western allies.

Media narratives have played a central role in shaping legal and public responses. As detailed in multiple reports—including my own in Middle East Eye—Western coverage of the war in Gaza has been riddled with anti-Palestinian bias. Natalie Khazaal’s research shows how U.S. media disproportionately centers Israeli suffering while either ignoring or decontextualizing Palestinian voices (Khazaal, 2024). CNN’s on-air treatment of Israeli statements with uncritical approval—while delaying or omitting Palestinian responses—further exacerbates this imbalance. A Wall Street Journal piece infamously labeled Dearborn, Michigan, a hub of “antisemitic terrorism sympathizers,” reinforcing racialized and Islamophobic tropes [(Khazaal, 2024); Kutty, MEE, 2024]. These narratives shape public perceptions and policy responses, narrowing the space for international legal accountability.

The erosion of international law is not limited to Gaza. As the Congressional Research Service notes, the U.S. approach to democracy and human rights often faces “tensions with other U.S. foreign policy goals” (CRS, 2025). Critics rightly argue that democracy promotion rings hollow when it is applied inconsistently and bypassed for strategic allies. The legal tools of sanctions, restrictions on arms sales, and human rights conditions are too often suspended or ignored when they conflict with military-industrial or geopolitical interests—as clearly demonstrated in the U.S. approach to Israel.

Despite these bleak realities, the crisis has galvanized global civil society. From campus protests and legal petitions to boycott and divestment campaigns, ordinary people are stepping into the void left by institutional inaction. Students, human rights lawyers, and faith-based groups have invoked universal legal standards to demand justice, even as they face increasing repression. This includes legal retaliation, detentions, deportations, surveillance, and doxxing campaigns against pro-Palestinian voices, particularly in the West.

The ICJ proceedings, although limited in immediate enforcement power, have reignited global conversations about accountability and the legitimacy of international legal norms. Countries like South Africa, Bolivia, and Ireland have demonstrated the importance of transnational solidarity in using legal tools to challenge impunity.

What is needed now is not merely critique but transformation. First, Western states must recommit to international law by ending military support that enables violations and by supporting independent legal processes without political interference. Second, international legal institutions must be reformed to insulate them from geopolitical pressures, streamline procedures, and embrace evolving definitions of harm that reflect modern patterns of violence. Third, the media must be held accountable for its role in reinforcing structural bias and eroding informed discourse. Finally, legal education and scholarship must confront the colonial legacies embedded in international law and amplify voices from the Global South.

As I wrote in Newsweek, Gaza has become “the graveyard of Western ideals” (Kutty, Newsweek, 2024). But it can also be the birthplace of a renewed legal order—one that prioritizes accountability over alignment, justice over geopolitics, and the protection of the vulnerable over the prerogatives of the powerful. For that to happen, law must not only survive this crisis; it must be radically re-imagined and reborn through the collective efforts of those unwilling to let legal ideals die in the rubble of Gaza.

References

• Al Attar, Mohsen Opinio Juris. Rethinking International Law After Gaza: Palestine at the ICJ – International Law v The ‘Rules-Based Order.’ Opinio Juris, July 10, 2024.
• Amnesty International. Flagrant Rule-Breaking by Governments and Corporate Actors. April 2024. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/04/amnesty-international-sounds-alarm-international-law-flagrant-rule-breaking-governments-corporate-actors/
• Atlantic Council. Update: Israel claims it is no longer occupying the Gaza Strip. What does international law say? January 2024.
• Burgis-Kasthala, Michelle and Masetti Placci, Matilde.  Lost for Words, yet Grasping for Neologisms: Gaza, Genocide and the Discursive Limits of International Law. EJIL:Talk!, November 14, 2024.
• Congressional Research Service. Democracy and Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: Evolution, Tools, and Considerations for Congress. January 2025.
• Ingber, Rebecca. Confronting the War on International Law in the United States. Just Security, October 24, 2024.
• Khazaal, Natalie. Bias Hiding in Plain Sight: Decades of Analyses Suggest US Media Skews Anti-Palestinian. The Conversation, February 29, 2024.
• Koh, Harold Hongju. America’s Overlooked National Security Threat. Just Security,  Sept. 11, 2024.
• Kutty, Faisal. Gaza Has Become the Graveyard of Western Ideals. Newsweek, October 4, 2024.
• Kutty, Faisal. Gaza is the Greatest Test Liberalism Has Faced Since 1945. And it is Failing. Middle East Eye, May 3, 2024.
• Opinio Juris. Rethinking International Law After Gaza: A Symposium and a Call to Action. 2024.
• Spektor, Matias. The US, the West, and International Law in an Age of Strategic Competition. Brookings, April 15, 2024.
• The Guardian. Gaza at Risk of Becoming ‘Graveyard of International Law’ – Palestinian Lawyer. 2024.