War and atrocities left unchecked as international law weakens

Can our world function without international law, despite all its failures? This is an increasingly legitimate question that kept popping up last year while the rules-based world order was being ripped up before our eyes.

Many would argue that the world has always been violent, uncertain and conflict-ridden. And that this preceded the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House in January 2025.

Others continue to believe that international law is still alive and kicking despite all the examples of impunity seen everywhere.

I am inclined to believe that international law is dying. And that the consequences of the demolition of the old order, governed for decades by the imperfect rules we became accustomed to following the Second World War, will be felt for years to come.

An authoritative study by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights on 23 armed conflicts over the last 18 months has concluded that international law, which seeks to limit the effects of war, is at breaking point.

The study describes the deaths of 18,592 children in Gaza, growing civilian casualties in Ukraine and an “epidemic” of sexual violence in Congo as evidence of a disintegrating system.

It comes at a time when the scale of the violations, and the lack of consistent international efforts to prevent them, is rendering our world less safe and closer to a bygone time when survival was for the fittest.

The consequences of the demolition of the old post-Second World War order will be felt for years to come

Mohamed Chebaro

The study, entitled “War Watch — IHL in Focus Report 2025,” published on Feb. 2, surveyed conflicts around the world between July 2024 and the end of 2025.

Its findings are a simple counterpoint to claims by Trump that he ended eight wars during his first 12 months in office. The study concluded that international humanitarian law is at “a critical breaking point” never seen before.

The report claims that “atrocity crimes are being repeated because past ones were tolerated” and that the action or inaction toward these crimes will determine whether international humanitarian law vanishes altogether.

You hear it all the time, especially among the young: open frustration and despair with the laws, international institutions and less-than-perfect world order, which has, until now, in my view, kept a semblance of peace despite all the atrocities, violence and geopolitical discord worldwide.

Yes, the existing system did not stop the killing or abuse all together, but it kept a mechanism of accountability. Yes, the world is not more equitable, but some aspects of international law organized trade and bolstered economies with a sense of shared destiny to eradicate ongoing poverty and dispossession.

And the list could go on in the absence of any serious proposals for alternatives that could save humanity from its built-in excesses.

Increasingly, those observing the state of the world question the inherent brutality and jungle-like state of affairs as international law is waning.

We are not yet at the “state of nature” of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, or his “war of all against all,” but in certain spheres humans are feeling isolated, impoverished and weakened.

For example, people in some parts of Ukraine are suffering under the Russian military’s attacks on civilian infrastructure. Also, Israel has been relentlessly bombing Gaza for more than two years.

And there is the forgotten war of Sudan, where there has been no regard for the sanctity of human life, as the troops of one side stormed Al-Fasher, leaving death and destruction in its wake.

I think all big and medium powers have a duty to abide by international law because a world without rules could cancel out centuries of human progress.

The publishing of the “War Watch” report coincided with other gloomy news, as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published its Doomsday Clock for this year, showing it to be 85 seconds before midnight — or very close to what those scientists term as Armageddon.

The scientists feel that nuclear and other global risks are escalating fast and in unprecedented ways.

History has proven that the world functions more effectively with international law, as it underpins, however imperfectly, frameworks for security, stability, trade, communication and conflict resolution.

This world order has, until now, kept a semblance of peace despite all the atrocities, violence and geopolitical discord

Mohamed Chebaro

Over the years, the big powers, particularly the US, led the way to endorse rules like the Geneva Conventions in 1949, regulating armed conflicts after the Second World War.

Later, from the 1960s, nations slowly started to endorse the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, with 191 states now signed up. Alongside that, after the UN and its agencies for peacekeeping were created, other treaties came into force to regulate trade and economic development.

All nations owe a debt to the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference for a system of capital and trade liberalization that the US wanted, paving the way for a multilateral economic system that has underpinned the spread of wealth everywhere, albeit imperfectly.

The world of today craves international law more than ever, as the risk of militarism will always rise with new and emerging emperors. Existential threats to humanity and the world have always emerged from natural causes, like climate change and diseases, and human-made ones such as wars and nuclear proliferation.

Seemingly on the eve of yet another military adventure in Iran, the US, more than any other nation, holds the key to a rules-based world, in an age in which we see alarming arms and technology races and competition over resources.

In addition, there is an unchecked race toward nuclear weapons. Nearly all of the nuclear-armed states, namely the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel, are pursuing intensive nuclear modernization programs, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

It is hoped that Thursday’s expiration of the New Start arms control treaty between the US and Russia, as the last legal check on the size of these two powers’ nuclear arsenals, will be an occasion for all to remember the importance of international law and treaties.

There is a vital need for heightened multilateral efforts to establish a rules-based order that ensures peace and stability for all.

• Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy.