Pawan Kumar is an Assistant Professor at Amity Law School, Amity University, Noida, and an honorary assistant professor at the International Institute of Justice and Police Sciences, Bengaluru. Krishna Tiwari is pursuing a Master’s in Business Law at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.
There have been significant developments in international law over the last five years identifying hostile acts, issuing arrest warrants, providing interim measures, and registering atrocities. However, there is a concerning gap between the developments in law and the situations found in the field. This is often cited to illustrate the ineffectiveness of international law, but this is overly simplistic. This does not consider the role of institutions and laws in continuing to define what we claim, what we prove, and what is valid. This is also too lenient in that it provides a simplistic explanation for non-compliance.
The present crisis is best understood as remedial asymmetry: comparable legal findings produce radically different practical responses depending on the identity of the alleged violator, its alliances and the strategic value of the victims. There is more to the issue than just breaking the law. There are violations of every legal order. The more fundamental issue is the selective distribution of decentralized remedies under international law, including as sanctions, arms limitations, arrests, internal prosecutions, and diplomatic isolation. The effects of the law are determined by power, yet it speaks universally.
A compliance chain, not a magic switch
Debates about whether international law ‘works’ often collapse several distinct functions into one. A more accurate assessment follows a compliance chain: rule, authoritative application, mobilisation and implementation. The first link inquires as to the existence of a regulation. The second inquires as to whether it can be applied to realities by a capable organization. The third relates to governments’ and international organizations’ readiness to mobilize economic, diplomatic, and legal resources. The fourth is the actual compliance of relevant actors’.
Strength at the first two links and acute selectivity at the final two are evident during the past five years. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the use of force against another state’s territorial integrity or political independence. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 141 states supported General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1 demanding that Russia end its unlawful use of force (UN General Assembly, 2nd March 2022). The International Court of Justice ordered Russia to suspend the military operations commenced on 24th February 2022 (Ukraine v Russia, Provisional Measures, 16th March 2022), and the International Criminal Court later issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin (ICC, 17th March 2023). Due to Russia’s non-compliance, collective enforcement was prevented by its veto of the Security Council. Despite this, a broad coalition mobilized military support, diplomatic isolation, evidence – gathering, and sanctions. Although the chain did not achieve compliance, there were significant repercussions.
A distinct trend is seen in Gaza. International humanitarian law was clearly violated by Hamas’s brutal attack on civilians and hostage-taking on October 7th, 2023. These regulations, along with the Genocide Convention, also applied to Israel’s later military campaign. In 2024, the ICJ indicated and twice reinforced provisional measures on Israel to avert acts within Article II of the Convention and to enhance humanitarian access. Its May order concerned the offensive in Rafah (South Africa v Israel, provisional-measures orders). The ICC issued warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity (ICC, 21st November 2024). These were legal acts, not political commentary. Yet some states that had initially supported accountability in relation to Ukraine later resisted its implications in relation to Gaza. In February 2025, the United States imposed sanctions on the ICC, expressly objecting to action against the United States and its ‘close ally Israel’ (US Executive Order, 6th February 2025).
Asymmetric neglect is also evident in Sudan. The Security Council issued Resolution 1593 in 2005 (Resolution 1593) and referred the Darfur situation to the ICC. However, many of these arrest warrants remained unenforced for years. When the war in Sudan resumed in April 2023, the UN Fact-Finding Mission reported attacks on civilians as war crimes and crimes against humanity, among others (UN Fact-Finding Mission, September 2025). The ICC’s historic conviction of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman on 27 counts, came nearly two decades after the Darfur referral (ICC case information). This further demonstrates that remedial asymmetry is not just the shielding of an ally, but also a lack of sustained political investment when there is no strong constituency.
Why selectivity matters when considering changes to the meaning of the law?
Not every discrepancy in response is a double standard. Disputes differ in various ways, including jurisdiction, evidence, legal position of the parties, and third-party means. Because of these differences, the outcomes cannot be expected to be the same. This is consistent reasoning: materially dissimilar treatment should be explained by legally significant disparities, as opposed to simply friendly, hostile, or indifferent relations.
This distinction matters because international law especially relies on third states. While the ICJ can order provisional measures (LaGrand, Judgment, 27th June 2001), it has no enforcement measures. Under Article 94, questions concerning enforcement of ICJ judgments may be brought before the Security Council (UN Charter, Article 94). The ICC similarly relies on cooperation. Article 86 of the Rome Statute imposes on the States Parties the obligation to cooperate fully with the Court. Where States do not arrest the suspects, obstruct investigations, or punish the institution, in such cases adjudication is disconnected from remedy.
Ukraine and Gaza, according to Fuad Zarbiyev, show instances of Western double standards that cannot be justified (“Damaged Beyond Repair? International Law after Gaza”). Similarly, in Sudan too, we can see that inconsistency can be the result of both commission and omission. Selective mobilization impacts victims of more than just the one conflict. Eventually it changes the meaning of legal demands. When a government is expected to comply with a court order, or to bear the consequences, or to abide by a ruling, it may point to similar non-compliance that was tolerated elsewhere.
From discretionary solidarity to reasoned consistency
Grand institutional reform is unlikely in the short term. One kind of intervention suggests states and regional organizations negotiate a Remedial Consistency Statement for serious violations of international law. Once a government imposes, declines to impose, lifts, or escalates sanctions, permits the export of weapons, reacts to an international arrest warrant, or complies with or ignores interim orders, it should publish a brief analysis of the trigger, supporting factual and jurisdictional information, the remedy selected, and the rationale for the disparate treatment of legally analogous circumstances.
This would not transform foreign policy into a judicial administration. It would not mean that sanctions must be applied in every single case. It would establish a framework for public reason. Already, there are legal assessments that must be done for every decision to export arms, under Articles 6 and 7 of the Arms Trade Treaty. ICC States Parties already have a duty to provide cooperation. A consistency statement would relate these existing duties to the practice of cross-conflict and make selective reasoning contestable in legislatures and courts.
Naturally, governments might create distinctions and use the statement as a justification for bureaucracy. However, a record is made for public reasons. Legislators, judges, media, and civil society might assess whether the stated criterion was used elsewhere, demand correction, and compare today’s rationale with yesterday’s. The approach increases the political and legal costs of hypocrisy rather than doing away with it. Additionally, it redirects the discussion away from assertions that a particular conflict is inherently moral and toward standards that can be applied to all situations.
Two institutional steps could reinforce it. First, General Assembly Resolution 76/262 already requires an Assembly debate when a permanent member casts a Security Council veto (UNGA Resolution 76/262). Where binding provisional measures concerning mass crimes have already been indicated and the Security Council is blocked, the General Assembly should hold a time-bound compliance debate and require a public report on implementation. The Assembly is able to prevent non-compliance from becoming ‘diplomatic silence’ but is unable to mirror Chapter VII sanctions enforcement. Second, when Court personnel or cooperating organizations are sanctioned or intimidated, the ICC member states should decide on a coordinated response in advance. All ICC arrest warrants should be executed and reported by member states using a standard report template. This will not eliminate the exercise of political choice, rather it will make that choice more visible.
The real test
It is not possible to exclude or eliminate power through international law. Its purpose is to direct, control and manage power through institutions, laws, and methods of reasoning. The case of Sudan shows how negligence of accountability leads to its deterioration, while the case of Gaza shows how the attempt of adjudication can lead to retaliation against the adjudicator and protection of an ally, and the case of Ukraine shows how illegality can be punished through the means of decentralized enforcement. When considered together, they show that an additional statement of universal values is not the missing element. Consistent results should be the norm or at the very least, there should be a legal requirement to justify inconsistencies. International law can coexist with repeated violations of these principles. However, a system in which remedies are allocated based on the identity of the violator cannot sustain its legitimacy in the long run. Great powers have always resisted constraints and what is unique today is that while the speed with which diverse audiences can compare legal positions across conflicts may be new, the exposure of incompatible justifications has always been possible.
