Article 4 — Enforcement and Power: How Major States Shape the Reach of International Law

I | From Judgment to Enforcement

Legal judgment is not the end of accountability; it is the beginning of enforcement.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) may issue orders and indictments, but neither possesses an army or a treasury.
Their power is delegated, not autonomous: every ruling depends on state cooperation for execution.

In Gaza, where the ICJ has already recognized a plausible risk of genocide and the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, the critical question is no longer what the law says but whether the law will be obeyed【1】【2】.

II | The Enforcement Vacuum

International law’s most profound weakness lies in asymmetric enforceability.
Under the UN Charter (Article 27), any of the five permanent members of the Security Council may veto enforcement action, effectively paralyzing collective measures【3】.

This veto system—originally intended to preserve great-power unity—has instead produced selective legality.
From Darfur (2009) to Myanmar (2021), and now Gaza (2024–2025), accountability often ends where geopolitics begins.
Without Security Council consensus, court rulings survive only as moral precedents.

III | The United States: Arbiter and Participant

No state illustrates this contradiction more clearly than the United States.
As Israel’s principal military and diplomatic patron, Washington simultaneously upholds a rules-based order and obstructs its application.

• The U.S.–Israel Memorandum of Understanding (2019–2028) guarantees $3.8 billion annually in military aid, including precision-guided munitions and F-35 aircraft【4】.

• These systems, documented by UNOSAT and Amnesty International, were used in strikes that destroyed civilian infrastructure【5】.

• In 2023–2025, the U.S. exercised three Security Council vetoes (Dec 2023, Feb 2024, Apr 2024) to block resolutions referencing ICJ orders【6】.

Under Article 16 of the International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility (2001), such assistance, rendered with knowledge of an ongoing international wrongful act, creates derivative liability【7】.
Domestically, it also conflicts with U.S. Leahy Laws, which bar aid to foreign units implicated in gross human-rights violations.

The paradox is structural: America enforces legality elsewhere but exempts its allies.
The longer this persists, the more the rule-based order becomes a rule-by-exception system.

IV | The European Union: Between Principle and Prudence

The European Union has formally affirmed that ICJ orders are binding and ICC warrants must be respected.
Yet unity fractures under political and economic pressure:

• Ireland, Spain, and Belgium have advocated sanctions and arms suspensions.

• Germany and the Czech Republic continue material and diplomatic support, invoking Israel’s “right to self-defense.”

In 2025, the European Council adopted the Humanitarian Accountability Directive (COM(2025) 142 Final), allowing targeted sanctions and export bans on companies complicit in genocide【5】.
However, enforcement depends on national discretion—fragmenting the EU’s legal authority into moral pluralism.

The European Union thus stands at a crossroads: either elevate humanitarian law into enforceable policy, or concede that economic pragmatism outranks universal norms.

V | The United Nations: Institutional Paralysis

The UN’s founding purpose—to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war—is undermined by its own design.
While the General Assembly can issue declarative resolutions (e.g., the Uniting for Peace Resolution 377(V), 1950)【8】, enforcement authority resides in the Security Council, where political vetoes prevail.

In the Gaza proceedings, the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry (A/HRC/60/CRP.3) found “genocidal intent … the only reasonable inference from the totality of evidence”【6】.
Yet the UN has been unable to translate those findings into operational action—an institutional failure that erodes its moral capital.

VI | Emerging Enforcement Mechanisms

With the traditional architecture gridlocked, alternative enforcement pathways are proliferating:

1. Universal Jurisdiction:
   Courts in Spain, Belgium, and South Africa have opened inquiries into foreign officials and arms suppliers linked to Gaza operations【9】.

2. Regional Sanction Coalitions:
   The EU’s new framework and parallel initiatives in the Arab League aim to establish collective deterrence through coordinated economic pressure.

3. Civil Society Litigation:
   NGOs and private law firms pursue corporate accountability under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) in the U.S. and under duty-of-care laws in the U.K. and Netherlands【10】.

4. Digital Evidence Transparency:
   Open-source data from UNOSAT, Bellingcat, and HRDAG create a new evidentiary ecosystem, reducing plausible deniability for states and corporations alike.

Together, these mechanisms represent an emergent polycentric enforcement system—law without hegemony, driven by networks rather than empires.

VII | Lessons from History

These precedents confirm that the enforceability of justice depends not on law’s existence but on power’s consent.

VIII | Multipolar Enforcement in a Fragmented Order

The rise of China, Russia, Türkiye, and South Africa as alternative legal poles marks a transition to jurisdictional multipolarity.
China and Russia cite Western inaction to question the universality of law; Türkiye and South Africa leverage international courts to reclaim moral authority.

If the West continues selective compliance, enforcement legitimacy will shift toward new blocs—potentially democratizing law but fragmenting consensus.

IX | Conclusion — Law Without Force, Force Without Law

Enforcement is the hinge of civilization’s contract with itself.
Without it, the Genocide Convention is not a shield but a monument to hypocrisy.
The credibility of the entire post-1945 legal order depends on whether powerful states choose obedience over exemption.

When law commands but power refuses, the world slides back toward the pre-Charter chaos the UN was built to end.
The lesson of Gaza is not only about atrocity—it is about whether humanity’s highest rules can still rule.

Endnotes

1. ICJ, South Africa v. Israel, Orders of 26 Jan, 28 Mar, and 24 May 2024.

2. ICC Prosecutor, Applications for Warrants of Arrest — Netanyahu & Gallant, 15 May 2025.

3. UN Charter, Article 27 (SC veto provision).

4. CRS, U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, Report R44245, July 2024.

5. European Council, Humanitarian Accountability Directive, COM(2025) 142 Final.

6. UN Human Rights Council, A/HRC/60/CRP.3, Sept 2025.

7. International Law Commission, Articles on State Responsibility, 2001, Article 16.

8. UN General Assembly, Uniting for Peace Resolution 377(V), 3 Nov 1950.

9. Spanish National Court Case 2025/07; Belgian Federal Prosecutor Inquiry 2025; South African NPA Filing (2025).

10. U.S. District Court (D.C.), Doe et al. v. Defense Contractors, Complaint under ATS, May 2025.