The international legal system was always tilted in the west’s favour

“Time and again, western disdain for international law has rebounded as a strategic disaster. [...] The contempt for international law displayed in Iraq helped clear the path for Putin’s later aggression against Ukraine. In Afghanistan, the war crimes committed by US-led forces stoked resentment which resuscitated the Taliban, ending in shattering military and strategic humiliation.

“The international legal system was always tilted in the west’s favour. That South Africa dared to accuse a key western ally of genocide at the international court of justice tells its own story, as does the support it received from much of the global south and European states such as Spain. The same logic applies to the ICC, which many western states assumed would be used only against their enemies or powerless nations. That this assumption no longer holds is itself a measure of western decline. Waging a campaign against judges who apply the law consistently will not arrest that fall. It will accelerate it. The west’s own hubris sent its power into freefall in the 21st century. There is still a long way down.”