There is a fundamental question that I would very much like to have answered: What is rules-based international order?

You might ask: Why such a question? The answer: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has finally decided to issue warrants for the arrest of leaders of both Israel and Hamas over the humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza. This comes on the heels of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that genocide was indeed taking place in that part of the world.

This is but the second incident in which the ICC has acted in this manner recently, it issued similar warrants for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin for the ongoing situation in Ukraine. That was not the first time that a European leader had been charged with war crimes by an international tribunal, it also happened at the Nuremburg trials that took place after World War II. Such incidents, however, are exceptions to the rule, as international criminal law has a tendency to target leaders from the Global South, such as Bashar Al-Assad of Syria or Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan, leading to criticisms of the courts being biased.

And speaking of criticism, it did not take long for Israel and their US allies to challenge this decision on account of bias. This charge, however, has no merit whatsoever, as the ICC warrants have been equally applied to both Israeli and Hamas leaders. This application of the rules in an equitable manner has not satisfied the critics like US President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken who have made the argument that it is “wrong” to apply equivalence to the actions of Israel and those of Hamas.

The logic behind such an argument is that because Israel is the “only democracy” in the Middle East, treating it as a pariah State is wrong. I, however, would argue that since Israel claims to be a democracy, it should be judged by the standard of what is expected of a democracy, and when it falls short, it should be held accountable like any other nation. Democracy is inherently linked with the rule of law, yet the argument put forward by Israel and its allies is that the Zionist State should not be subject to the same rules as its adversaries.

On the matter of adversaries, I would like to draw a sharp contrast between how the United States reacted to the ICC’s warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as opposed to the one issued against Putin. The United States, in the past, has a tendency to be very supportive of international court rulings when applied to their enemies, such as the Russians; however, as soon as Israel is the one placed on the microscope, all of a sudden the legitimacy and even the integrity of the court is called into question.

One of the most egregious examples of this comes directly from Netanyahu himself, who called the court anti-Semitic for daring to hold him accountable. This is hardly the first time he has made such a claim, using that same rhetoric to refer to South Africa when it brought its genocide case before the ICC. He also said something similar regarding protesters around the world calling for justice for the Palestinian people. In fact, one can see it almost as a pattern of the Israeli prime minister to call every critic a neo-Nazi sympathiser. How can Israel plausibly refer to itself as a democracy when it uses such ugly language to smear anyone who dares to criticise it?

Israel is not alone in this, however, as the United States has also taken a similar stance to refer to critics of Israel and its ongoing offensive against the people of Gaza. A week before the warrants were issued, a group of US Republican senators issued threats to staff members of the ICC to impose heavy penalties should they follow through on issuing the warrants. This act of bullying would be clearly unacceptable in other contexts and quite frankly it is rather disturbing that the same US that commonly refers to its enemies, like Putin and Assad as thugs, now has some of its most senior congress members openly and blatantly intimidating court officials and staff in the exercise of their judicial functions.

If all of this was not already bad enough, some of the most hard-line Zionists in the US have even advocated for the United States to invoke The Hague Invasion Act (HIA) to deal with the ICC should it attempt to bring Netanyahu or other Israeli leaders to justice. The HIA claims to give the US Armed Forces the “right” to take military action to rescue any US personnel who is being held by the ICC.

This Act has never actually been exercised, but the very fact that it even exists on the books is telling, as such an action would require the US to invade the sovereign territory of the Netherlands, a democracy and a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, an act which clearly violates the North Atlantic Charter.

The fact that some in the United States would advocate using this method to violate international law to defend people who are not even US citizens sends a clear message that they see themselves as being above the rule- based international order.

Another talking point that demonstrates the hypocrisy of the US and Israel is the argument regarding jurisdiction. According to the US and Israel, the ICC has no jurisdiction because Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Statute. This argument falls flat for two reasons: first of all, the Rome Statute, in Article 13, states that once one of the affected parties is a signatory to the statute, the ICC does have jurisdiction, and in this case, Palestine is a signatory to the statute; therefore, its jurisdiction in this matter is perfectly legal. Secondly, the same US which claims that Israel is exempt from ICC rules had no problem supporting the ICC warrant against Putin for the Ukraine War; although, in that case, neither Russia nor Ukraine were signatories of the Rome Statute, which means that the ICC genuinely had no jurisdiction there.

The United States’ stance on the ICC’s case against Netanyahu is rooted in its decision to refuse to recognise Palestinian statehood, which, in its view, makes Palestine’s signature on the statute illegitimate. However, it must be pointed out that the US is not the arbiter of international law, and in an environment in which more and more countries are increasingly recognising the legitimacy of a Palestinian State, its competence to sign the Rome Statute is therefore perfectly legal.

In a democratic world order, all are meant to be equal, but clearly some are more equal than others, which goes against the very spirit of a rules-based international order in the first place. The idea that some nations can pick and choose when to apply rules, how to apply rules, and who the rules apply to are all clear signs of a broken system. There can be no justice in the world so long as law is not respected by all; otherwise, what we end up with is a two-tiered hypocritical system in which the rules can “apply to thee but not to me” .

jaeson.greene@outlook.com