The struggle to preserve a fair international law

Why in the News

South African jurist Navi Pillay has won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, as powerful authoritarian leaders weaken international law. The debate is whether authoritarian states are destroying that law or retooling it. Tom Ginsburg calls the second view “authoritarian international law”, a body of rules that shields regimes from scrutiny.

What is authoritarian international law?

1. What it is: It is an attempt by authoritarian states to build a new normative order. It is like a club that keeps its rulebook but rewrites it to protect its members from complaints.
2. The order it departs from: The liberal order built after the Second World War, shaped by democratic states and deepened after the Cold War, wrote civil, political and human rights into its working.
3. Courts and organisations: States gave international organisations (IOs) significant powers and created courts and tribunals to settle disputes, a trend called judicialisation.
4. The takeaway: Authoritarian states are not simply hollowing out international law but rewriting it, so the fight is over whose purposes it serves.

Is international law being hollowed out or retooled?

1. Hollowing out: The ban on using force has been broken as multiple wars rage, compliance with human rights law has waned, and war crimes and crimes against humanity have risen.
2. Vague language: A former US President favoured the ambiguous “rules-based order” over “international law”, a move towards governance with few binding norms. The current US President said his own morality guides him, not international law.
3. Retooling: The other view is that authoritarians are retooling international law for their own objectives, as rising authoritarianism, even within liberal democracies, alters the liberal order.

How do authoritarian states retool international law?

1. Regime survival over rights: Authoritarian states treat international law as a tool for coordinating regime survival, so rights and accountability for war crimes get little place.
2. Sovereignty claims: Sovereignty now shields regimes from scrutiny. Eg. Israel rejects UN human rights body reports as interference in its sovereign affairs.
3. Weak organisations: Regimes delegate as little power as possible to IOs, so the members stay in control. Eg. the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
4. Negotiation over courts: Regimes prefer negotiation or quasi-judicial mechanisms to third party adjudication. Eg. the backlash against the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Why does the Pillay prize matter?

1. The signal: By honouring Pillay, the Nobel Committee has signalled that international law matters, and the open question is which kind.
2. Israel’s condemnation: Israel called the prize the “greatest lie” of the 21st century.
3. The inquiry: Pillay chaired the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. That commission concluded that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
4. Individual as a subject of law: The law Pillay represents rests on equality, fairness and accountability. It makes the individual a subject of international law, meaning a person holds rights and duties under it, and most authoritarian regimes despise that.

Challenges

1. Vague vocabulary: Phrases like “rules-based order” let states choose which rules bind them.
2. Weak enforcement: International courts have no police force and depend on states to carry out their orders.
3. Pressure on courts: Sanctions on court officials weaken a court’s work. Eg. US sanctions on ICC officials in 2025.

Way Forward

1. Courts: Courts should keep hearing war crimes and rights cases, and national courts should apply international norms.
2. Civil society: Civil society should document violations and give evidence to UN inquiry bodies.
3. Academia: Academics should expose the retooling of law and defend precise legal rules.
4. Democratic states: Democracies should speak of binding international law, not the vaguer “rules-based order”.

Conclusion

International law is contested less by repeal than by redefinition, and what it comes to protect depends on that contest. Whether democratic states and courts hold to binding law instead of looser language is the test to watch.

Back2Basics: International Criminal Court (ICC)

1. What it is: A permanent court at The Hague that tries individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.
2. Founding: The Rome Statute was adopted in 1998 and entered into force in 2002.
3. Last resort: It acts only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute, a principle called complementarity.
4. India: India is not a party to the Rome Statute.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2015] Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action’, often seen in the news, is (a) a strategy to tackle the regional terrorism, an outcome of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (b) a plan of action for sustainable economic growth in the Asia-Pacific Region, an outcome of the deliberations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (c) an agenda for women’s empowerment, an outcome of a World Conferene convened by the United Nations (d) a strategy to combat wildlife trafficking, a declaration of the East Asia Summit ANSWER: (c)”