The New Humanitarian
Politics and Economics
Opinion
9 December 2025
Can the Global South salvage international law?
Israel may have laid bare the contradictions of the post-World War II international legal system, but the cracks have been there all along
Kate McMahon
Freelance journalist based in Egypt, where she reports on environmental change and regional conflicts
South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) Director-General Zane Dangor, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor and South African Ambassador to the Netherlands Vusimuzi Madonsela stand as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rule on emergency measures against Israel following accusations by South Africa that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is a state-led genocide, in The Hague, Netherlands, January 26, 2024.
Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor and two other diplomats at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in January 2024, when South Africa brought a case against Israel, accusing it of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
An exterior of The International Criminal Court (ICC) is seen as the United States is considering imposing sanctions as soon as this week against the entire International Criminal Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, September 22, 2025.
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WEST BANK, Occupied Palestinian Territories
International law stands at a breaking point. Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip has been met with impunity, causing the credibility of the liberal world order to sink to historic lows. Condemnations from Western leaders have not been followed with meaningful action. The global institutions built to prevent and punish atrocities appear unwilling – or unable – to intervene.
Consequently, the international legal mechanisms established in the wake of World War II are failing, or they never really worked. Into this crisis of accountability has stepped a coalition of Global South nations coming together to form the Hague Group, whose mission is to enforce international law where the West has staggered. The group's attention is fixed on Palestine, where the shortcomings of international law have been laid bare.
Founded by Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa, the group announced its formation on 31 January 2025 in response to the growing cracks in international legal enforcement and its politicised, selective application. On its raison d’être, Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, the acting chair of the Hague Group, explained: “In a world where powerful nations act with impunity, we must stand together to defend the principles of justice, equality, and human rights.”
The group’s practical aims are to uphold the legal opinions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and enforce arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). In July 2024, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion finding that Israel’s nearly six-decade occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal and must end. Four months after the ICJ opinion, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Over a year later, Israel’s illegal occupation has only grown more entrenched, and most European Union states have failed to commit to enforcing the ICC’s arrest warrants. This is not the first time states have ignored ICC arrest warrants, but it has also reinforced what scholars call Israeli exceptionalism: the long-standing exemption of Israel from the legal standards applied to other nations.
In Gaza, the tenuous ceasefire has slowed the death rate, but Israel has continued to carry out attacks in violation of the agreement, killing at least 350 Palestinians since 10 October. Even if the ceasefire holds, US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan – now endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution – does not contain a vision for anything resembling justice and accountability for Palestinians. Rather, it legitimises occupation, giving the US a leading role in a form of international custodianship over Gaza reminiscent of the colonial mandate system. The US is now tasked with dictating the rebuilding and governance of a nation reduced to rubble by American munitions, denying its people the right to self-determination – a core tenet of international law enshrined in the UN charter.
While the UN Security Council rapidly approved the Trump-backed resolution, it spent two years unable to pass a ceasefire or take action to hold Israel accountable for attacks on Gaza. No country with the power to force Israel’s hand imposed sanctions to shrink its economy or stop its war machine. Several states – including Spain, Italy, and Canada – have announced arms embargos, albeit with loopholes. But 99% of Israel’s arms purchases come from just two countries: the US and Germany. And even European states that pay lip service to a two-state solution have opted for a largely symbolic diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state rather than concrete action to bring one about or put Palestinians in charge of their own future.
This enablement of impunity exists alongside an overwhelming body of evidence documenting Israeli atrocities and violations of international law. Israel has bombed hospitals and arrested healthcare workers en masse; killed journalists in airstrikes on live television; used starvation as a weapon of war; opened fire on people seeking humanitarian aid; and abducted and tortured thousands.
The list of evident crimes goes on. In September, a UN commission of inquiry determined that Israel is committing genocide, reaching the same conclusion as many of the world’s leading human rights organisations and genocide scholars.
Against this backdrop, countries of the Global South, under the umbrella of the Hague Group, are attempting to take matters into their own hands – and trying to salvage international law in the process.
A precedent dismantled
When the Hague Group announced its formation and convened earlier this year, some commentators were quick to compare it to the Bandung Conference in April 1955.
Back then, representatives of 29 African and Asian nations gathered in Bandung, Indonesia to discuss decolonisation and forge intercontinental solidarity. Leaders spoke of the need to develop a bloc outside Cold War power politics, respect human rights and national sovereignty, and support independence movements against colonialism.
The conference popularised the idea of the Third World. Before the term took on its current negative connotations, it offered a collective identity among newly independent states. The concept preceded and inspired the Non-Aligned Movement, which sought to translate that sense of postcolonial solidarity into a formal political stance of neutrality during the Cold War. The Third World encompassed the aspirations of formerly colonised countries – most who had gained their independence only within the last few years – to carve their own paths and shape their own futures.
In his opening remarks at Bandung, Indonesian President Sukarno stated: “What can we do? The peoples of Asia and Africa wield little physical power. Even their economic strength is dispersed and slight. Our statesmen, by and large, are not backed up with jet bombers. What can we do? We can do much! We can inject the voice of reason into world affairs. We can mobilise all the spiritual, all the moral, all the political strength of Asia and Africa on the side of peace.”
But while Sukarno spoke optimistically of peace and intercontinental solidarity, few aspirations of Bandung were ever realised. From the outset, the prospect of a unified postcolonial bloc aroused suspicions in Washington, where policymakers saw economic self-determination as a pro-Soviet stance. In the decades that followed, postcolonial countries seeking to nationalise their resources or resist corporate dominance were frequently targeted, their elected governments overthrown by the CIA and allies, from Iran to Guatemala.
In Indonesia, President Sukarno was overthrown with the assistance of the CIA and replaced with right-wing General Suharto, whose military murdered around one million Indonesian civilians in less than a year of anti-communist purges.
Ghana’s revolutionary leader Kwame Nkrumah, who attended the Bandung conference, was overthrown in a 1966 coup widely believed to have CIA backing. Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk, also present at Bandung and a self-proclaimed neutralist, was deposed in 1970 by the pro-American general Lon Nol.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo also sent a delegation to Indonesia. Four years later, its revolutionary independence leader Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by Belgian forces with assistance from the CIA, and a violent, Western-backed military regime headed by Mobutu Sese Seko was installed.
By the end of the 20th century, the ideals of Bandung had largely collapsed. The dream of Africa-Asia solidarity acting as a counterbalance to the Cold War powers and helping to safeguard a more just global order never came to fruition.
Third World cooperation was defeated in a series of coups, proxy wars, and human rights violations, for which major powers were never held accountable. And when the Cold War ended, it did not usher in a new era of compliance with international law. Instead, the War on Terror soon provided a new arena for Western violations with impunity.
Israel may have laid bare the contradictions of the post-World War II international legal system, but the cracks have been there all along.
A united front?
At Bandung, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser envisioned a united Arab world standing “against imperialism” and against Israel. But the united front never materialised, and Egypt became the first Arab country to normalise relations with Israel a decade after Nasser’s death. Jordan normalised relations in the 1990s, and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco all followed suit with the Abraham accords in 2020. Egypt recently signed a $35 billion natural gas deal with Israel, showing its willingness to trade with the occupation. The majority of Arab states have also supported Trump’s “peace” plan.
While other formerly colonised nations struggle to chart a course of resistance, the absence of Arab solidarity – and complicity in the Israeli occupation for economic gains and regional power – underscores the gap between the aspirations of Bandung and the reality of today.
For many, confrontation with Israel carries tangible economic and diplomatic risk: reduced American aid, trade retaliation, or political destabilisation.
Unlike the Bandung Conference’s more expansive vision of postcolonial solidarity, the Hague Group is narrowly focused on accountability and self-determination in Palestine. Still, the Palestine question carries significance far beyond its borders, with many viewing it as the centerpiece in a wider struggle over whether international law is universal or selectively applied – and if colonial nations can ever be held accountable within this framework.
Leaders of the Hague Group are also quick to point out the inherent hypocrisies and biases of international law. When the group convened in Colombia this July, South Africa’s representative Zane Dingor remarked: “It’s clear the ICC was intended only for Africans.” As of April 2024, an Amnesty International report noted that 47 out of 54 individuals indicted by the ICC in the last two decades were African.
But even countries sympathetic to the Hague Group’s goals have been inconsistent in their translation of rhetoric into action: Only 12 of the 30 countries attending the emergency conference in Colombia accepted the final resolution that called for, among other measures, an arms embargo and a cessation of trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
For many, confrontation with Israel carries tangible economic and diplomatic risk: reduced American aid, trade retaliation, or political destabilisation. But without unified action and consensus, the Hague Group’s efforts remain largely ineffective against a much more powerful bloc. Even as a united front, the decisive question is not legal but geopolitical: Do its members have the leverage or collective influence to force accountability on Israel, or any state protected by major powers?
The risk of normalising impunity
For now, the balance of power suggests otherwise. The US and the EU continue to shield Israel diplomatically and materially. The structure of the UN Security Council, in which a single permanent member state can veto a resolution that has been otherwise universally accepted, further limits the capability for action. Russia and China, while more critical of Israel, remain wary of strengthening mechanisms that punish international law violations, given allegations against them in Ukraine, Syria, Chechnya, and Xinjiang, among others.
International law depends on enforcement by powerful actors. When those actors are party to violations, the framework itself begins to unravel. Legal experts describe this moment as a test of the system’s structural integrity. “A genocide in our time with this level of destruction shows how fragile the rule of law is,” Raji Sourani, a Palestinian lawyer and director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, said in an interview earlier this year. “We cannot allow international law to die in Gaza by allowing Israel’s impunity.”
The failure to enforce these laws risks normalising impunity, eroding the deterrent power of international mechanisms, not only in Gaza but in conflicts from Sudan to Ukraine. If international law is dead or dying, rogue states can invade sovereign nations, target hospitals, and massacre aid seekers without consequence.
For Global South leaders, this has turned the conversation from legality to legitimacy: Who or what gets to define and enforce international law. The Hague Group’s emergence is now a test of whether collective pressure from mid-level powers, who may have learned something since 1955, can meaningfully constrain great-power impunity and whether they can stand as a unified front.
Postcolonial nations that once viewed international institutions as tools of Western hegemony are now invoking them as instruments of reform. Whether this marks the beginning of a coordinated effort to rebalance global governance or simply another cycle of frustration and inequality remains uncertain. What is clear is that the credibility of international law now depends less on legal agreements and treaties than on collective political will – a resource that appears increasingly scarce.
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