These are bad times for international law in Germany. In a February 10 interview with the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper, Germany’s presumptive next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was welcome in Germany and that the government would find a way to skirt the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant for his arrest. In a February 14 interview on Tilo Jung’s podcast, outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to discuss the possibility that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) might find Israel guilty of genocide because he found the charges baseless and «absurd».

On February 11, Berlin’s mayor Kai Wegner demanded that the Freie Universität cancel a planned event with Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, on the grounds that «our universities are places of learning and research, but also the cultivation of values and mutual respect». The university’s leadership fell in line. The talk was ultimately held at a private event space in Kreuzberg, though not without police surveillance. Even a livestream of the discussion in an auditorium at the Freie Universität had a heavy police presence.

Thus, within the space of a week, Germany’s political leadership demonstrated its lack of «mutual respect» for three high-level international institutions: the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and the United Nations Human Rights Council, which gave Ms. Albanese her mandate. An arrest warrant issued by the ICC with extensive supporting documentation. A lawsuit before the ICJ that has come to encompass more than a thousand pages and has led to three orders for provisional measures. A comprehensive, well-sourced report from the UN Special Rapporteur. In today’s Germany, all this counts for less than the chancellor’s personal opinion and an open letter published by the Werteinitiative («Values Initiative») that compiled a handful of problematic social media posts that Albanese has made over the past twelve years. An alleged war criminal with a warrant out for his arrest is welcome in Germany, but the UN Special Rapporteur tasked with documenting his crimes and putting an end to them is not.

The state has been happy to trample on the rights of free speech and academic freedom in its efforts to suppress events on international law, and really, any engagement with it at all. It has had some success, it seems. Albanese has been subject to harassment and defamed as an antisemite, while the press and the public have mostly ignored her analyses of violations of international law. The decisions of the ICJ and ICC have met a similar fate in Germany, as have the findings of human rights organizations like Amnesty International. In the few instances in which they have been reported on, it has generally been to question whether they are motivated by antisemitism, not whether their legal arguments are sound.

Criticisms of International Law and Western Hegemony

Critics have long complained that international law has always served as an instrument of Western interests, that its institutions are weak and incapable of enforcing their own principles, and that its complex, technical nature makes it no match for realpolitik.¹ In many respects, these criticisms are merited. Conceived as a guardian of peace after two World Wars, international law has not put an end to war, neither during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union created a deadlock on the UN Security Council, nor since its conclusion. The ICC has almost exclusively prosecuted the heads of African states while protecting European and North American leaders. The warrants for the arrest of Putin, Netanyahu, and Gallant constitute a recent exception. Finally, the technical language of international law and the Genocide Convention shocks many who find that it inadequately captures the horrific actions of their tormentors.