Ignorance is no excuse under domestic law. Whereas, ignorance legitimises illegal and immoral wrongs under international law. Option creates the huge difference between municipal and international law. Law is law, it cannot be optional; therefore, international law is wrongly called law. If there is law, it has to be abided by all. The element of discretion makes it quite ineffective. It remains on paper and gives way to the theory of might is right.
Permanency in UNSC membership has been a debatable issue right from the inception of UNO. International law is basically a collection of treaties, conventions and statutes of the world nations. For a proper International Law, all countries should be parties to all conventions. If not all, necessarily influential and powerful nations. Reverse to that they are not; but the nations that are signatories have the least say in world politics.
In the wake of recent attack on Iran, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is one of the cases in point. The treaty was adopted on July 17, 1998, and entered into force on July 1, 2002. Till date, the Rome Statute has 154 states; out of those 125 ratified it and 29 additional signatories that have not ratified. The 125 nations are currently parties to the statute, meaning they have ratified it and are full members. The remaining 29 countries signed the treaty but have not ratified it. Key members include most of Europe, South America, and Africa. Notably, the USA, Russia and Israel have withdrawn their intent to ratify. Importantly, the United States (2002), Israel (2002), Sudan (2008), and Russia (2016) have formally notified the UN that they no longer intend to become parties, effectively revoking their signatures. Several nations, including India, China, Türkiye, and Iraq, have neither signed nor ratified the statute.
The United States, Israel, and Russia withdrew from or never ratified the International Criminal Court (ICC) Rome Statute to protect national sovereignty, military personnel, and political leaders from prosecutions they deem illegitimate. They cite concerns over politicised investigations, lack of jurisdiction over non-member states, and potential for biased, one-sided, or politically motivated actions against their citizens. Are these real reasons? It is difficult to consume that these are real reasons. But it seems that these nations want unfettered powers to use unreasonable discretion and usher in their monopoly.
Crimes defined in Articles 7 and 8 bis of the Rome Statute are hugely being violated. Crimes against humanity are any of the 11 acts mentioned in Article 7 when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population with the knowledge of attack. The essence of this Article is just killing of innocent civilians’ population. Para 1 of Article 8 bis defines crimes of aggression as the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations. There are seven acts which shall, in accordance with United Nations General Assembly resolution 3314 of 14 December 1974, be considered an act of aggression.
International crimes are being committed by the USA and Israel in the ongoing war. All states and parties must uphold their obligations under international law to protect civilians and safeguard schools. Contrary to that, on 28 February 2026, the missiles destroyed a girl’s primary school in Minab, southern Iran, killing around 150 and wounding almost 100. Many students are believed to be among the dead. The killing of civilians, especially children, is unethical and violation of Article 7. If the USA and Israel were parties to the Rome Statute, they would have been liable for such an international crime. Therefore, they never intend to become parties to such Statutes.
More than 1000 civilians have been killed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran this weekend. People inside Iran are fearful of a rising death toll. Civilians in Tehran are striving to flee to smaller cities as US-Israeli strikes intensify. Clouds of smoke over the Tehran’s skyline, continuous loud explosions and videos showing rubble in the heart of the capital left them fearful. Just days into the US and Israeli strikes targeting Iran, innocent people have been killed, mainly in Iran, with the remaining deaths scattered across neighbouring countries in the Middle East as the conflict escalates.
A United States submarine has sunk an Iranian warship with a torpedo in international waters off Sri Lanka’s coast. Sri Lanka’s navy claimed 87 bodies had been recovered and 32 sailors were rescued after an Iranian military ship sank just outside the island’s territorial waters. Such instances are proofs of gross violation of Article 8 bis of the Rome Statute. The Iranian vessel had taken part in a naval exercise organised by India in the Bay of Bengal. The US had perpetrated this atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles away from Iran’s shores. These are a few instances of international crimes. The States that are not parties to the Rome Statue have the malafide right from the inception. If they had signed the Rome Statue, they would have been declared offenders for the crimes mentioned under Articles 6, 7, 8 and 8 bis.
The jurisdiction of international criminal court is optional. Article 11 provides that the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction only with respect to crimes committed after the entry into force of the Rome Statute. Then, why will the States like the US and Israel want to own the responsibility of their misdeeds?Therefore, all states and parties must be made to uphold their obligations under international law to protect civilians.
[Prof. Ishrat Husain teaches at Department of Law, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. Email: ishrat364@gmail.com]