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The Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University invites you to this discussion on the current omni-crisis in international law - with Prof. Marco Milanovic from Reading University, Susan Power from Al Haq, Palestinian lawyer Sahar Francis, and Dr. Thomas Hansen and Dr. Roua Al Taweel from Ulster University – on 8 July 2025, 6.30pm to 8pm (UK time).
We are currently witnessing an escalating and multifaceted disregard for the UN Charter, international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
Following the Israeli attacks on Iran which began on 13 June, UN Secretary-General Guterres has called for de-escalation of the violence, adding that ‘the UN Charter remains our shared framework to save people from the scourge of war,’ urging all Member States to fully comply with the document and international law – but to little avail. On 20 June twenty-four UN Special Rapporteurs and experts have condemned the attacks on Iran as ‘a flagrant violation of fundamental principles of international law, a blatant act of aggression and a violation of jus cogens norms—peremptory rules of international law from which no derogation is permitted.’ On 22nd June the United States intervened militarily to support Israel’s attacks using bunker-busting bombs on three nuclear sites in Iran. The UK has sent RAF jets to the region.
The exchanges between Israel and Iran have taken the focus off the ongoing violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Gaza. The starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and killings of people gathered at food distribution points no longer attract the same levels of media attention and political condemnation. According to one human rights group, the Israeli Defence Forces has killed more than 600 people in Gaza in the week since 13 June 2025, approximately 195 while attempting to obtain food packages. A range of lawyers increasingly use the language of genocide, serious risk of genocide, or mounting evidence of genocide to describe the Israeli policy in Gaza.
At the same time, repression continues in the West Bank, similarly overshadowed by the Israel-Iran clashes.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have both taken steps in recent years, but Hungary’s flouting of an international arrest warrant (and decision to exit the ICC), the US decision to sanction members of the ICC, and Israel’s apparent indifference to both the ICJ’s Advisory Ruling on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the provisional measures ordered in South Africa and others v Israel all raise questions about the efficacy of the institutions intended to uphold international law.
