USA takes sledgehammer to international law

The great artist Michaelangelo completed his “David” and some other seminal works before he turned 30. Imagine if, a few decades later, he had carried a sledgehammer along to where “David” stood in Florence’s most famous public square, and set about smashing his masterpiece to pieces…

That is, roughly, analogous to the story of what the U.S. government has been doing in recent years — and more intensively, over recent months — to the whole structure of international law that Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt so painstakingly crafted at the end of World War 2.

The past seven days have seen two momentous events. On July 19, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is the highest court in the whole world, adjudicating only conflicts between states, not individuals, issued a landmark judgment to the effect that, inter alia:

• (#3) the State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian
  Territory is unlawful;
• (#4) the State of Israel is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible;
• (#5) the State of Israel is under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and
• (#6) the State of Israel has the obligation to make reparation for the damage caused to all the natural or legal persons concerned in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The full text of the judgment, a summary of it, and the accompanying comments of several individual members of the ICJ bench can all be accessed via this page on the ICJ website.

The ICJ bench has 15 members, coming from (but notably not representing the policies of) 15 geographically dispersed member-states of the United Nations. The judges typically serve nine-year terms. Since February, the President of the court has been Lebanese jurist Nawaf Salam. The July 19 ruling was issued in response to a request from the U.N. General Assembly and constitutes the judgment of the highest court in the world on the matters considered. This judgment, while not self-implementing, is definitive and cannot be appealed to any other court, anywhere.