December 9, 2025 • 37 mins
On Inside Geneva this week: what does international law mean to you?
“When your government is not there to uphold your rights, it’s that safety net – to think that there’s something else out there, other sets of rules that can help right wrongs and bring about some form of justice as well,” says Kasmira Jefford, editor at Geneva Solutions.
The Geneva conventions, bans on torture and landmines: global rules that should protect us. And international courts to ensure accountability.
“I think there's a different expectation, a different hope for international law today. We now have many rules that are far more ambitious than they used to be,” says Nico Krisch, professor of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute.
But do they work?
“All the justices saying X about Gaza, about Netanyahu. All the decisions of the International Criminal Court. Show me the results. Show me when Putin comes to Alaska. Show me when Netanyahu comes to the White House. How many violations can there be before the treaty or the norm becomes invalid? I think we’re seeing a level of violation that is extraordinary,” says analyst Daniel Warner.
Do governments even want the laws to work?
“I think if somebody proposed today to create an International Criminal Court, they’d be laughed at. This isn’t the diplomatic climate for such ventures,” continues Krisch.
“The way certain leaders are acting today is not sustainable. They might get away with cherry-picking parts of treaties they like best for a while, but at some point there will be a reaction. It could be climate change, it could be massive natural disasters forcing us to work together,” adds Jefford.
“We have these laws because we made some awful mistakes and committed terrible crimes. What I really hope is that we don’t have to reinvent everything because we made the same mistakes again,” says host Imogen Foulkes.
Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.
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SPEAKER_05 (00:48):
This is Inside Geneva.
I'm your host, Imogen Folkes,and this is a production from
SwissInfo, the internationalpublic media company of
Switzerland.
SPEAKER_15 (01:01):
In today's program, international law is like the
ultimate rule book forcountries.
Think of it as the world'sreferee.
SPEAKER_16 (01:08):
When your government is not there to uphold your
rights, it's that safety net tothink that there's something
else out there.
There are these other sets ofrules that can help right wrongs
and bring about some form ofjustice as well.
SPEAKER_13 (01:20):
There's a different expectation, different hope
around international law.
I think today we have many rulestoday that are much more
ambitious than they used to be.
SPEAKER_12 (01:29):
Tonight, the International Criminal Court
issuing arrest warrants forIsrael's prime minister, his
former defense minister chargingthem with crimes against
humanity.
SPEAKER_00 (01:39):
The International Criminal Court has issued an
arrest warrant for RussianPresident Vladimir Putin because
of his alleged involvement inabductions of children from
Ukraine.
SPEAKER_06 (01:48):
You can give me all the justices saying X about
Gaza, about Netanyahu.
You can give me all the decisionof the International Criminal
Court.
Show me the results.
Show me when Putin comes toAlaska.
Show me when Netanyahu comes tothe White House.
SPEAKER_05 (02:05):
We got these laws because we made some awful
mistakes and committed someterrible crimes.
And what I really hope is thatwe don't have to reinvent all
this stuff because we made thesame mistakes again.
SPEAKER_13 (02:17):
I think if somebody today proposed to create an
international criminal court,they would be laughed at.
SPEAKER_05 (03:23):
To discuss this, we have here in the studio Nico
Krisch, Professor ofInternational Law at Geneva's
Graduate Institute, KasmiraJefford, editor-in-chief of
Geneva Solutions.
That's a daily newsletter thatis essential reading for anyone
working here in Geneva, in theUN, in humanitarian agencies,
(03:44):
and our regular analyst, DanielWarner.
Welcome to you all.
I'm going to start off with areally basic question, but I
think it's maybe a good idea toask all of you what does
international law actually meanto you?
How would you define it?
And Nico, since you're theprofessor, I'm going to come to
you first.
SPEAKER_13 (04:05):
Thanks, Imogen.
On a very basic level, uh,international law is the
compound of obligations thatstates have vis-a-vis one
another, right?
That's the basic and formaldefinition, I would say.
But of course, that doesn't tellus very much.
And probably it is more in amore ambitious formulation, it
(04:26):
would be, in a sense, the rulesthe international community
lives by, which kind of takes usfrom the formal territory to
more an aspirational idea thatsomehow international law also
signifies the idea of alaw-based international society,
which is not something we can soeasily take for granted.
SPEAKER_16 (04:44):
Kelsey Muiran, what about you?
Well, I'll give a slightly lessperhaps academic uh definition
for as a as a journalist.
Uh for me, I mean, I think uhinternational law really is uh
in the auspices of the palace inGeneva, it can be quite an aloof
term and and obscure and andkind of confined to everyday
(05:04):
language that diplomats use hereto negotiate treaties.
But I think really more thanthat, it's a a living, breathing
thing that people count on.
It's you know, when yourgovernment uh is is not there to
uphold your rights, it's thatsafety net, that stopgap to
think that there's somethingelse out there.
There are these other sets ofrules that can help right wrongs
(05:26):
and bring about some form ofjustice as well.
And um that's very important.
I think it's a lot of veryimportant to people out there.
SPEAKER_05 (05:33):
Very something that protects us.
I mine is is very basic anyway.
Two things.
One from quite a long time ago,my late mother-in-law, her
brother, went missing overGermany.
He was an RAF navigator, verysadly, three weeks before the
armistice was signed.
But his family knew they couldcontact the Red Cross and that
(05:56):
if he was a prisoner, they wouldbe able to send him things.
And they knew that immediatelythat was there as something in
this terrible moment.
Unfortunately, he was foundquite quickly that he had uh
died.
And the other thing is uhsomebody who worked for the Red
Cross when I first started inGeneva, who had uh come back
(06:16):
from uh the Middle East, and hesaid international law is the
barrier between us and our ownbarbarism.
And that kind of struck me thatthere are just some things you
shouldn't do in life, andunfortunately we all still do
them, but we have these laws.
Uh Danny, what about you?
SPEAKER_06 (06:35):
Well, I mean, simply it's a question of what states
or any organization or anyperson can do and can't do.
But I often come back to JanFuller's professor statement
that the law, international law,has an unfolding purpose.
And the unfolding purpose isprobably notions of justice.
(06:56):
And it's unfolding in a sense,it's not static, it's not
stable, but it's always changingaccording to what the situation
is, and certainly today, aswe'll discuss, the situation is
changing radically.
SPEAKER_05 (07:11):
One of the things I wanted to talk about, because
things are very polarized anddivisive today, especially on
this topic, but it is eightyyears since the end of the
Second World War, and eightyears since the Nuremberg
trials.
SPEAKER_17 (07:29):
Judges from Britain, America, Russia, and France
assemble in Nuremberg'scourthouse.
Imagination sickens at thecrimes laid upon the accused,
now stripped of the trappings ofthumb.
The world's rich has run toNuremberg, and justice waits.
SPEAKER_05 (07:46):
Now, at that moment, Nico, you've probably studied
this.
There was a consensus, wasn'tthere?
There should be not justaccountability for the crimes
committed, but that there shouldbe a body of law which would
criminalize some of these thingsmore than they had been up to
then.
SPEAKER_13 (08:04):
Yeah, there was clearly a consensus in the
international community, whichof course did not really include
the enemy states at the time,right?
To create a body that would notsimply execute the leaders of
the defeated country, butinstead put them on trial to
make visible to the world whatcrimes they had actually
(08:24):
committed.
And the crime of aggression was,of course, among those.
So that was a very decisivemoment.
Um, at the same time, of course,that gave birth to some broader
laws.
The Genocide Convention, ofcourse, was part of the kind of
that development, uh, the GenevaConventions to an extent too,
that have some criminalizingelements to them.
(08:45):
But it took quite a while afterthat, actually, kind of to come
back to the project ofinternational criminal law that
would really single outindividuals for crimes.
And that's really something thatwe see much more than in the
1990s happening, right?
After the end of the Cold War,after the consensus to some
extent had dissipated during theCold War, and then uh there was
(09:07):
a possibility of coming togetheragain in more fortunate
circumstances.
SPEAKER_05 (09:11):
This was, I suppose, a moment of hope, wasn't it?
89 to maybe 99.
What do we think?
What's happened since then?
What has got us to this pointwhere we are seeing, to me, it
feels like anyway, egregiousdevaluing of international law?
SPEAKER_06 (09:29):
I think, Imogen, there are there are better
moments and there are downmoments.
I was thinking of the GenevaConventions, the middle of the
19th century, Libra Code in theUnited States dealing with the
Civil War.
And after that, we have WorldWar I and World War II.
And today we're at a momentwhere people states are less and
(09:52):
less respecting internationallaw.
Why that came about,politicians, political
scientists may answer.
But the question is, is this theend of international law?
Because certainly everyoneagrees that we should protect
certain things, especially us.
(10:12):
The question is, how much can weimpose obligations and how much
can we punish?
SPEAKER_02 (10:18):
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest
warrants for Israel's PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu and
former Defense Minister JoavGalant for alleged war crimes in
the Gaza Strip.
SPEAKER_14 (10:42):
For the ICC to succeed, it needs the support of
governments because its powersare limited.
The power it has is for judgesto take decisions.
SPEAKER_06 (10:50):
There are certain people, I think of Netanyahu, I
think of Putin, who are underindictments and they seem to be
welcomed around the world.
Can that change?
Will individuals be taken to beresponsible?
But I think the laws are there.
The question is whether they'rerespected and what can be done
about those who violate them.
SPEAKER_05 (11:11):
I suppose if we look back over the years since 1945,
we do know that it's not as ifwe got to the early 21st century
and everybody abandoned stuffthey'd been obeying for decades.
That's not true.
I mean, we had terrible wars inthe 1960s, we had Vietnam, we
had the use of chemical agents,we had the invasion of
(11:32):
Afghanistan, we had theoverthrow of uh a government in
Chile.
So it's not as if everybody wasa saint.
But Casmir, I want to come toyou because there's one
particular treaty, and I knowyou're working on it at the
moment, which was hailed in the1990s as a fantastic treaty and
been celebrated ever since, andthat's the Convention Against
(11:53):
Landmines.
Now, I was crossing the Placedes Nations last night, leaving
my office, past the brokenchair, which is a monument to
that convention.
And there were two young guys,and they'd come out of the UN
behind me, and one of them saidto the other, Do you know what
that why why that chair has hasonly three legs?
(12:15):
And the other one said, uh Idon't know, just some diplomatic
stuff.
So here's my question.
Do you think, since you're theyoungest here, that the younger
generation is is too far awayfrom the consciousness of why we
drafted these internationallaws?
SPEAKER_16 (12:32):
I think uh they might not call them
international laws.
Um they use differentvocabulary, but I I think that
young people today are, and Iwouldn't necessarily count
myself as one of them since I'muh a little bit older, but uh
younger than us.
Come on.
I think people, I think youngpeople really do care.
(12:53):
They don't call it internationallaw, but there's a where all we
have a sense of right and wronggrounded within us.
I'd like to believe we stillhave that, and so they uh sense
when something is justinherently wrong and and uh
intuitively wrong, so and arestill prepared today to protest
to stand up against thesewrongs.
(13:15):
So it might not be in thatlanguage, but I think there is a
sense of injustice.
We see it in the fight forclimate justice.
SPEAKER_14 (13:23):
The UN's highest court has ruled that climate
change is an urgent andexistential threat.
The ruling came in response to acase brought by the island state
of Vanuatu.
The court added that failing toprotect the planet from the
effects of climate change couldbe a violation of international
law.
SPEAKER_04 (13:40):
Thousands of kilometers away from the Pacific
Ocean.
A clear and unanimous decisionwith far-reaching consequences
for island peoples.
SPEAKER_16 (13:55):
The International Court of Justice's opinion that
was issued this summer, that wasuh an opinion that came from a
classroom in Vanuatu and someyoung students who decided, you
know, what can internationallaws do for us, recognizing that
climate change is a violation ofour human rights.
And you saw countries, I can'tremember how many countries it
(14:17):
was, but a record number ofcountries who were who spoke at
that hearing, at those hearingsat the end of last year and
brought attention to that.
I think I think there are stillpeople activating those buttons
and finding creative ways tomake those laws work for them.
Or at least maybe that's theyoung, the youth in me that
still hopes.
SPEAKER_05 (14:36):
I wonder though, and you Danny and Nico, you tell me
this as well.
I do wonder whether there'squite an awareness, though, that
international law is based on onabsolutes in some way.
There is an absolute prohibitionon torture.
Or if you've signed up to thelandmine convention, there is an
absolute prohibition basicallyon you using the anti-personnel
(15:00):
landmines.
And yet, with the landmineconvention, the argument, and we
see countries withdrawing fromit now, is they're in the
Baltics, they have borders withRussia, is Russia is going to
use them against us, so weshould be able to use them
against them.
A few years ago, theInternational Committee of the
Red Cross did a survey onattitudes to torture, and it was
(15:22):
among younger people that theyqualified the absolute
prohibition.
They said if we can get usefulinformation that might prevent
an attack, we can torturepeople.
So I'm wondering, Nico, Danny,do you do we need more
education?
I think Casmira as well, what doyou think?
SPEAKER_06 (15:40):
I'm not sure it's education.
Uh I think what's happened, uh,you want to see why we're in a
different situation today.
It's a question of threshold.
When you have a treaty or anorm, there is a threshold that
says you can't do this.
Obviously, certain people statesare going to violate it.
How much violation can there bebefore the treaty or the norm
(16:05):
becomes invalid?
And I think we're seeing a levelof violation that is
extraordinary.
And it's that level that haspeople saying this is
disregarded, why should we beinterested?
Look at the people who do thatand look at how many people do
that.
That's something I think wehaven't seen.
SPEAKER_05 (16:24):
Nico, do you agree with that?
SPEAKER_13 (16:25):
Um Yeah, I'd agree with that, but I think there's
also something broader going on.
I mean, we've seen surveys,right, about the rise of
anti-liberal or illiberalattitudes, and especially among
younger men, I think, more thanwomen, even.
So there might be a broadershift in attitudes also kind of
that makes people turn towardsuh kind of softening some
(16:46):
prohibitions.
But I think there's also there'smaybe something more going on,
and that goes a bit to thecontrast and why people are
turning to, say, theInternational Court of Justice
now, right?
There's a different expectation,different hope around
international law, I think,today, than there was maybe, I
imagine, in the 70s or 80s.
We have many rules today thatare much more ambitious than
(17:08):
they used to be.
The Landmines Convention is oneof them, right?
People wouldn't have hoped inthe 1970s to get this off the
ground.
It was something that could bedone in the 1990s.
So we have a set of ambitiousrules.
We have the InternationalCriminal Court, things that also
were unthinkable to an extentbefore.
SPEAKER_05 (17:24):
But would they be thinkable now?
They were thinkable in the1990s.
SPEAKER_13 (17:28):
I think if somebody today proposed to create an
international criminal court,that would be laughed at.
SPEAKER_06 (18:54):
Nico, not to be the New York Cynic, but that's what
Imogen wants me to do.
You can give me all the justicessaying X about Gaza, about
Netanyahu.
You can give me all the decisionof the International Criminal
Court.
Show me the results.
Show me when Putin comes toAlaska.
Show me when Netanyahu comes tothe White House.
(19:17):
Where are the results of thedecisions being made that you
claim the world was waiting tohear?
SPEAKER_05 (19:23):
Well, instead, the judges are being sanctioned.
SPEAKER_08 (19:26):
We start in the United States where Donald Trump
has denounced the InternationalCriminal Court, accusing it of
illegitimate and baselessactions against the US and
Israel.
SPEAKER_05 (19:59):
American tech agarchs.
SPEAKER_16 (20:01):
New word, everybody.
And on that, I think the uh theICC has its uh annual meetings
this week where where it isasking itself some of these
fundamental existentialquestions of what where its
future lives, can it continue tooperate next year if uh if it's
continued to be hit by bysanctions and uh and also if it
if its warrants proveineffective against countries
(20:24):
that don't uphold them.
So I think that there's some bigquestions being asked at the
moment on the future of the ICCand others.
But I I was going to add beforejust a small point to say that
also with at the same time thebirth of all these treaties and
talk of international law alsogives The kind of violators of
those laws or states' languageto use to their advantage as
(20:46):
well.
I mean, it gives them avocabulary to kind of justify
their actions and their wrongs.
And that's also dangerous inthis world we live in today
where everything is broadcastand communicated on different
platforms.
So that's um, you know, that'salso given them also a powerful
tool, whether it's, you know,Vladimir Putin justifying his
(21:07):
invasion of Ukraine or, youknow, the many other countless
examples.
SPEAKER_05 (21:11):
I wanted to get on to particularly the situation
we're in right now, because 2025has seen some pretty shocking
things which seem to be we'vealways seen shocking things, but
seem to be somehow toleratedmore.
SPEAKER_11 (21:29):
The IPC report says 16 children under the age of
five have died of hunger-relatedcauses since mid-July.
It is a famine.
The Gaza famine.
SPEAKER_18 (21:39):
All members of the United Nations Security Council,
with the exception of the US,have said that the famine in
Gaza is man-made.
SPEAKER_10 (21:49):
We're learning new details about one of those
deadly US strikes on allegeddrug boats in the Caribbean.
Sources tell CNN the US militarycarried out a follow-up strike
on September 2nd.
SPEAKER_09 (21:59):
And today we're asking, has the Trump
administration committed warcrimes amid reports that the US
military killed two peopleclinging to wreckage in the sea
after they survived an initialairstrike on their boat?
SPEAKER_05 (22:12):
When I started this job in Geneva, it wasn't long
after the United States hadinvaded Iraq, which we know Kofi
Ann and the then SecretaryGeneral eventually said he felt
it was an illegal invasion.
And I I went to the WorldEconomic Forum and Dick Cheney,
the late Dick Cheney, was vicepresident, and he gave a speech
(22:32):
all about America's newdoctrine, and they wanted to
adjust the Geneva Convention.
The audience of leaders fromEurope and Latin America sat on
their hands.
He did not get a warm welcome.
And now we see with the UnitedStates, even from here in
Geneva, there's been very littleopen condemnation of, for
(22:56):
example, these attacks on theboats in the Caribbean.
We see now the United Statessiding with Russia at a UN
Security Council vote.
And Europe is a bit squashed inthe middle and a bit nervous, I
think.
I mean, before we started, Nico,you were saying you thought the
goalposts had really been moved.
SPEAKER_13 (23:17):
Yes, I think they they have been moved, maybe not
for everybody.
Um certainly I think that you'reright.
The Europeans are in a difficultposition uh strategically,
largely because they realizethat they depend on the US to
such an extent that they can beplayed pretty easily, right?
So I think kind of that has ofcourse lost them lots of
legitimacy, especially kind ofaround the Gaza war, in that
(23:41):
large parts of the rest of theworld kind of see them as
hypocritical, in a sense, kindof only speaking out when things
happen to their friends, but notwhen their own friends kind of
commit crimes.
So I think kind of that isreally a significant shift that
the Western world that wasalways seen to be upholding
those values of theinternational rule of law.
SPEAKER_05 (24:01):
And lecturing other people.
SPEAKER_13 (24:02):
And lecturing other people, that's right, kind of
have turned away from it, orclearly have turned away
whenever it does they don't suitthem so much.
So I think kind of that hasshifted.
I think for many others alsokind of the goalposts have been
moved because you cannot simplyrely on law compliance anymore
on so many issues.
So clearly this is gonna erodethe broader fabric of
(24:25):
international law, which asDanny rightly said, right,
depends on countries complyingin order for there to be a sense
that there is a legal system,right?
There's no other enforcement ofinternational law, typically
then international publicopinion and the reactions of
other states.
So clearly, in that sense, Ithink something something has
changed, but it has also changedto quite some extent from
(24:48):
Western-centric vision of theinternational legal order
towards a range of other statesin the South and in the East
claiming that international lawshould be complied with, and
with good reason, really.
SPEAKER_05 (25:13):
And with justification being accused of
double standards.
You we hear this at the UN HumanRights Council, Casmira.
You must have have heard this alot, that the global south is
just looking at the huge outcryover the invasion of Ukraine, a
justified outcry, and the um thecouple of whispers about Gaza.
Danny, you wanted to come in.
SPEAKER_06 (25:34):
Yeah, I mean, uh two short points.
First, um, Imogen, it's lovelythat you use the word shocking
because it shows a conscienceand it shows a certain
understanding of values that noteveryone shares.
But my main point, to come backto Nico, you're talking about
the West.
I mean, come on, let's talkabout the United States.
(25:54):
And the role recently, underTrump specifically, dealing with
multilateralism, dealing withliberal values, has had enormous
impact negatively oninternational law.
And there is no question, Nico,you said it's positive to some
extent that the law is movingout of Eurocentric, but on the
(26:16):
other hand, the United Stateswith European allies has always
been the leader inmultilateralism since the Second
World War.
And without the United States,in this aspect, I think it's
terribly damaging for the roleof international law.
And if you have a system in theUnited States today which is
(26:37):
constantly violatinginternational law, it's very
difficult to find anothercountry or a person who's going
to be Mr.
or the state that's going to bebehind international law.
And I think that has to be said.
SPEAKER_05 (26:51):
Do you think some people say we need to get on
with this without the UnitedStates?
Because they're so far out ofthe set out of the game now.
SPEAKER_16 (26:58):
I mean, they're centre of the tension, but
they're not center of the world.
And back to your point about thedouble standards, I think that's
definitely the narrative we heara lot here.
But at the same time, I I spoketo Alain Delittreux, who's head
of the Humanitarian and GeoGeneva Corps, that works with
non-state armed groups to tryand convince them to comply to
international law.
And he said that there wasn'tone country where they're
(27:20):
working with at the moment wherethe commanders don't mention
Gaza as a counterexample and askwhy they should respect IHL if
an official army doesn't.
But that doesn't mean after thatthat they don't then work with
them to put codes of conduct inplace.
I think, yes, that dialogue isthere.
But then beyond that, I thinkyou see developing countries
(27:42):
still very keen to still engagewith some of these mechanisms
like the universal periodicreview.
We saw the US not turn up to itsuniversal periodic review.
They didn't show up.
It's a precedent which uh manycountries would not be proud of,
but but there we are.
No, exactly.
But I think that does not meanthat other countries won't um I
(28:03):
mean the fear is that othercountries will then say, well,
why should we show up if theUnited States, the champion of
democracy and the one thefounders of the UN Charter isn't
why should we?
But I think you're still seeingcountries very still keen to
engage with some of thesemechanisms.
Do you think Nico?
SPEAKER_13 (28:22):
Yeah, I mean I I think among a large part of the
countries of the world, I thinkthey are keen to continue as
long as the system worksreasonably well.
Um but on the question of theUS, I completely agree with
Danny that the US has been amain pillar behind the
multilateral system andcertainly its construction,
right?
Without the US, we wouldn't havethe UN at all.
(28:42):
But at the same time, it has hadan ambivalent relationship with
multilateral institutions andtreaties for a long, long time.
If you look at the number oftreaties European countries have
signed compared to the number oftreaties the US has signed,
right?
There's a big gulf there.
And uh we've seen thisambivalence behind lots of
negotiations and institutions.
So, in a sense, it's never beenmerely kind of a nice and happy
(29:07):
story.
And now I think many morecountries say, well, okay, so
now we simply cannot count onthe US anymore.
If we are negotiations withthem, we know that they're not
going to sign this treaty.
We listen to them, but becausethey're not gonna come on board
anyway, we have to somehow carryon regardless and know that we
have to do it without them.
You got to the landminesconvention also without the US,
(29:29):
without the great militarypowers in principle, which of
course may have been a birthdefect of the convention from
the start, but it expressed aparticular moral sentiment of
large parts of the world, right,to outlaw those kinds of
horrible weapons.
And I think kind of the sensethat you, if you want to move
forward, you have to somehow youhave to find the right moral
compass, and then you have tokind of build as large a
(29:52):
coalition as possible around it,but it will often, at least for
the moment, not include the USand not Russia.
Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_05 (30:01):
Yeah, I mean, in fact, uh in the last episode of
Inside Geneva, we talked aboutCOP 30, and some of the people I
talked to said it was actuallyeasier not to have the United
States there.
Danny, you wanted to come in,and then I've got one last
question.
SPEAKER_06 (30:13):
Yeah, I mean, the question of the moral compass is
a complicated one, Nico.
Someone once told me a wonderfulstory.
When the United States used toviolate or do things,
international law, the Presidentor the Secretary of State would
go to the legal advisor to theState Department and say, I'm
gonna do this, justify it.
Now they don't even ask.
(30:33):
And that's a fundamental change.
Fundamental change.
And I think the world looks atthat and the double standard
that committed.
That's the double standard.
Why should we do it when lookwhat they're doing?
Therefore, there's not a leadertoday who is the moral compass
and says, no, this is totallyunacceptable.
We don't even have the Swissdefending the Geneva Conventions
(30:55):
as I think they ought to.
So we have a lack of leadershiphere, and I think there's
something negative there, Nico,in terms of promoting
international law.
SPEAKER_05 (31:05):
You said about what's changed and not asking
whether we can do this or not.
While I was preparing for thispodcast, I was reading about
this book by Giuliano da Empoli,The Hour of the Predator, and
what he's writing about, and Ihave to be honest, I haven't
read the whole thing, that thereis a new populist class of
political predators and digitalconquistadors.
(31:28):
What a phrase, huh?
And he basically is arguing thatthese people bonded together,
and we have seen that in theUnited States, haven't we?
With the business community, thepolitical class and the tech
giants, that they are basicallysaying there's a load of stuff
we just don't need, like anindependent judiciary, and
international law wouldn't fallinto that.
(31:49):
So I'm just wondering, we shouldoffer our listeners some
optimism at the end of the show.
Is that what's coming?
And is it a bad thing?
Or are we going to be able tohang on to these, I mean, these
fundamental principles, which Ithought they were fundamental
and were sticking around.
Who wants to go first?
SPEAKER_06 (32:08):
I mean, you raise the question, Imogen, of the
thin line between the public andthe private.
What I think is positive is thatwe're living in a world that's
more and more interdependent.
If a flood happens in Asia, if astarvation famine happens in
another region, we all knowabout it.
So in that sense, the complexinterdependency we're seeing
(32:32):
means that we have to react oneway or another to what's going
on.
Therefore, because we're morecosmopolitan, there has to be
basic fundamental ways that theworld, the system, has an order.
We're in a certain sense inanarchy today about certain
things, but certain thingsfunction.
(32:53):
And I think that interdependencewill lead us out of the problems
we have today to something morepositive.
SPEAKER_16 (33:00):
Well, that is that at least is positive.
Casmira, you got your hand up.
I'm I'm piggybacking on thatbecause I do think that the way
that certain leaders today areacting is not sustainable.
And so perhaps for a certaintime we can do away with
cherry-picking bits of treatiesand laws that they like best.
But at some point there's gonnabe a reaction to that, and at
(33:21):
that point we're gonna have toneed to fill that void, and it's
gonna be climate change, it'sgonna be massive natural
disasters where we're forced towork together, and there's no
denying that.
I mean, he can deny climate allhe wants, but there's gonna be
some point where even the UnitedStates is going to need help
from other nations.
Nico, you've been waiting.
SPEAKER_05 (33:39):
You had your hand up first.
SPEAKER_13 (33:40):
Oh, so so many things to to say.
Well, and kind of clearly I'mnot in the great mood for
optimism, I have to say.
If you ask us to be optimistic,but uh how optimistic can we be,
right?
If over the last 15 yearsFreedom House has reported a
decline in democratic valuesacross the world kind of year
after year.
I think there's a serious crisisof liberal democracy, of the
(34:04):
idea of rights, of protections,of popular participation that we
have to face.
And that will reflect intointernational law, international
institutions.
So I think kind of that'ssomething we is probably going
to shape much of the law that wesee, and it might not be the
best law that we might imagine,right, if we come from a liberal
democratic perspective.
(34:24):
At the same time, I thinkbecause of that interdependence,
countries need to cooperatesomehow.
Now, one shouldn't think thatjust because we have
interdependence, countriesimmediately cooperate, right?
There's still a large step to bemade.
Climate, clearly, kind of a sortof a very big uh big problem
that we're not tackling as much.
But clearly, lots of countrieshave a need and a will to
(34:45):
cooperate.
And also a language, right?
Sort of I was at a conference inChina a couple of months ago,
and of course, everybody wastalking about as if
multilateralism was the onlything that you can talk about in
foreign policy.
Now, however, one might take itwith a grain of salt, but uh
nevertheless, there is stillmuch more of a rhetoric than you
see in the US, where taking theword international law into your
(35:08):
mouth makes sure that you're notgoing to be heard in the
administration.
So, kind of you don't want towant to do that.
I think really kind of the turnfrom interdependence to
cooperation will come primarilyfrom countries that are not the
great powers.
They can often do withoutothers, or they think they can
do without others.
Probably they cannot, but ittakes them longer to see that.
But it's smaller and middlepowers, I think, kind of that
(35:30):
are likely to carry whateverwill come next.
And then hopefully we'll get theothers somewhere on board.
But for them, it is much morecrucial to work with others in
order to solve the problems theyhave.
They simply cannot go it alone.
SPEAKER_05 (35:43):
Well, I second that.
I I also think that there'sgoing to have to be more
cooperation of the like-mindedwhen it comes to these
fundamental standards.
I also want to leave on a noteof optimism, but I am worried.
I am worried about this predatorpopulist big tech, that this
(36:04):
grouping doesn't seem to havetime for the law unless it suits
them.
And that would includeinternational law and the basic
international human rights law.
I'm reminded where we startedwith the Second World War, that
we got these laws because wemade some awful, awful, awful
mistakes and committed someterrible crimes.
(36:25):
And what I really hope is thatwe don't have to reinvent all
these stuff because we made thesame mistakes again.
But let's hope not.
The fact that we're even heresitting talking about it is a
good sign.
That brings us to the end ofthis edition of Inside Geneva.
Thank you all very much.
Danny Warner, Nico Krisch,Casmira Jefford.
Next time on Inside Geneva, justa little reminder: despite all
(36:49):
the cuts in humanitarianfunding, there are aid workers
posted all over the world who inDecember, many of them will be
spending their time away fromtheir families and their friends
and their homes because they areworking in places like Ukraine
or in South Sudan.
And we're going to be hearingfrom three of them.
(37:11):
So tune in on the 23rd ofDecember for a holiday special.
I'm Imogen folks.
Thanks for listening.
A reminder you've been listeningto Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info
production.
(37:31):
You can subscribe to us andreview us wherever you get your
podcasts.
Check out our previous episodeshow the International Red Cross
unites prisoners of war withtheir families, or why survivors
of human rights violations turnto the UN in Geneva for justice.
I'm Imogen Folks.
(37:52):
Thanks again for listening.
This is Inside Geneva.
I'm your host, Imogen Folkes,and this is a production from
SwissInfo, the internationalpublic media company of
Switzerland.
SPEAKER_15 (01:01):
In today's program, international law is like the
ultimate rule book forcountries.
Think of it as the world'sreferee.
SPEAKER_16 (01:08):
When your government is not there to uphold your
rights, it's that safety net tothink that there's something
else out there.
There are these other sets ofrules that can help right wrongs
and bring about some form ofjustice as well.
SPEAKER_13 (01:20):
There's a different expectation, different hope
around international law.
I think today we have many rulestoday that are much more
ambitious than they used to be.
SPEAKER_12 (01:29):
Tonight, the International Criminal Court
issuing arrest warrants forIsrael's prime minister, his
former defense minister chargingthem with crimes against
humanity.
SPEAKER_00 (01:39):
The International Criminal Court has issued an
arrest warrant for RussianPresident Vladimir Putin because
of his alleged involvement inabductions of children from
Ukraine.
SPEAKER_06 (01:48):
You can give me all the justices saying X about
Gaza, about Netanyahu.
You can give me all the decisionof the International Criminal
Court.
Show me the results.
Show me when Putin comes toAlaska.
Show me when Netanyahu comes tothe White House.
SPEAKER_05 (02:05):
We got these laws because we made some awful
mistakes and committed someterrible crimes.
And what I really hope is thatwe don't have to reinvent all
this stuff because we made thesame mistakes again.
SPEAKER_13 (02:17):
I think if somebody today proposed to create an
international criminal court,they would be laughed at.
SPEAKER_05 (03:23):
To discuss this, we have here in the studio Nico
Krisch, Professor ofInternational Law at Geneva's
Graduate Institute, KasmiraJefford, editor-in-chief of
Geneva Solutions.
That's a daily newsletter thatis essential reading for anyone
working here in Geneva, in theUN, in humanitarian agencies,
(03:44):
and our regular analyst, DanielWarner.
Welcome to you all.
I'm going to start off with areally basic question, but I
think it's maybe a good idea toask all of you what does
international law actually meanto you?
How would you define it?
And Nico, since you're theprofessor, I'm going to come to
you first.
SPEAKER_13 (04:05):
Thanks, Imogen.
On a very basic level, uh,international law is the
compound of obligations thatstates have vis-a-vis one
another, right?
That's the basic and formaldefinition, I would say.
But of course, that doesn't tellus very much.
And probably it is more in amore ambitious formulation, it
(04:26):
would be, in a sense, the rulesthe international community
lives by, which kind of takes usfrom the formal territory to
more an aspirational idea thatsomehow international law also
signifies the idea of alaw-based international society,
which is not something we can soeasily take for granted.
SPEAKER_16 (04:44):
Kelsey Muiran, what about you?
Well, I'll give a slightly lessperhaps academic uh definition
for as a as a journalist.
Uh for me, I mean, I think uhinternational law really is uh
in the auspices of the palace inGeneva, it can be quite an aloof
term and and obscure and andkind of confined to everyday
(05:04):
language that diplomats use hereto negotiate treaties.
But I think really more thanthat, it's a a living, breathing
thing that people count on.
It's you know, when yourgovernment uh is is not there to
uphold your rights, it's thatsafety net, that stopgap to
think that there's somethingelse out there.
There are these other sets ofrules that can help right wrongs
(05:26):
and bring about some form ofjustice as well.
And um that's very important.
I think it's a lot of veryimportant to people out there.
SPEAKER_05 (05:33):
Very something that protects us.
I mine is is very basic anyway.
Two things.
One from quite a long time ago,my late mother-in-law, her
brother, went missing overGermany.
He was an RAF navigator, verysadly, three weeks before the
armistice was signed.
But his family knew they couldcontact the Red Cross and that
(05:56):
if he was a prisoner, they wouldbe able to send him things.
And they knew that immediatelythat was there as something in
this terrible moment.
Unfortunately, he was foundquite quickly that he had uh
died.
And the other thing is uhsomebody who worked for the Red
Cross when I first started inGeneva, who had uh come back
(06:16):
from uh the Middle East, and hesaid international law is the
barrier between us and our ownbarbarism.
And that kind of struck me thatthere are just some things you
shouldn't do in life, andunfortunately we all still do
them, but we have these laws.
Uh Danny, what about you?
SPEAKER_06 (06:35):
Well, I mean, simply it's a question of what states
or any organization or anyperson can do and can't do.
But I often come back to JanFuller's professor statement
that the law, international law,has an unfolding purpose.
And the unfolding purpose isprobably notions of justice.
(06:56):
And it's unfolding in a sense,it's not static, it's not
stable, but it's always changingaccording to what the situation
is, and certainly today, aswe'll discuss, the situation is
changing radically.
SPEAKER_05 (07:11):
One of the things I wanted to talk about, because
things are very polarized anddivisive today, especially on
this topic, but it is eightyyears since the end of the
Second World War, and eightyears since the Nuremberg
trials.
SPEAKER_17 (07:29):
Judges from Britain, America, Russia, and France
assemble in Nuremberg'scourthouse.
Imagination sickens at thecrimes laid upon the accused,
now stripped of the trappings ofthumb.
The world's rich has run toNuremberg, and justice waits.
SPEAKER_05 (07:46):
Now, at that moment, Nico, you've probably studied
this.
There was a consensus, wasn'tthere?
There should be not justaccountability for the crimes
committed, but that there shouldbe a body of law which would
criminalize some of these thingsmore than they had been up to
then.
SPEAKER_13 (08:04):
Yeah, there was clearly a consensus in the
international community, whichof course did not really include
the enemy states at the time,right?
To create a body that would notsimply execute the leaders of
the defeated country, butinstead put them on trial to
make visible to the world whatcrimes they had actually
(08:24):
committed.
And the crime of aggression was,of course, among those.
So that was a very decisivemoment.
Um, at the same time, of course,that gave birth to some broader
laws.
The Genocide Convention, ofcourse, was part of the kind of
that development, uh, the GenevaConventions to an extent too,
that have some criminalizingelements to them.
(08:45):
But it took quite a while afterthat, actually, kind of to come
back to the project ofinternational criminal law that
would really single outindividuals for crimes.
And that's really something thatwe see much more than in the
1990s happening, right?
After the end of the Cold War,after the consensus to some
extent had dissipated during theCold War, and then uh there was
(09:07):
a possibility of coming togetheragain in more fortunate
circumstances.
SPEAKER_05 (09:11):
This was, I suppose, a moment of hope, wasn't it?
89 to maybe 99.
What do we think?
What's happened since then?
What has got us to this pointwhere we are seeing, to me, it
feels like anyway, egregiousdevaluing of international law?
SPEAKER_06 (09:29):
I think, Imogen, there are there are better
moments and there are downmoments.
I was thinking of the GenevaConventions, the middle of the
19th century, Libra Code in theUnited States dealing with the
Civil War.
And after that, we have WorldWar I and World War II.
And today we're at a momentwhere people states are less and
(09:52):
less respecting internationallaw.
Why that came about,politicians, political
scientists may answer.
But the question is, is this theend of international law?
Because certainly everyoneagrees that we should protect
certain things, especially us.
(10:12):
The question is, how much can weimpose obligations and how much
can we punish?
SPEAKER_02 (10:18):
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest
warrants for Israel's PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu and
former Defense Minister JoavGalant for alleged war crimes in
the Gaza Strip.
SPEAKER_14 (10:42):
For the ICC to succeed, it needs the support of
governments because its powersare limited.
The power it has is for judgesto take decisions.
SPEAKER_06 (10:50):
There are certain people, I think of Netanyahu, I
think of Putin, who are underindictments and they seem to be
welcomed around the world.
Can that change?
Will individuals be taken to beresponsible?
But I think the laws are there.
The question is whether they'rerespected and what can be done
about those who violate them.
SPEAKER_05 (11:11):
I suppose if we look back over the years since 1945,
we do know that it's not as ifwe got to the early 21st century
and everybody abandoned stuffthey'd been obeying for decades.
That's not true.
I mean, we had terrible wars inthe 1960s, we had Vietnam, we
had the use of chemical agents,we had the invasion of
(11:32):
Afghanistan, we had theoverthrow of uh a government in
Chile.
So it's not as if everybody wasa saint.
But Casmir, I want to come toyou because there's one
particular treaty, and I knowyou're working on it at the
moment, which was hailed in the1990s as a fantastic treaty and
been celebrated ever since, andthat's the Convention Against
(11:53):
Landmines.
Now, I was crossing the Placedes Nations last night, leaving
my office, past the brokenchair, which is a monument to
that convention.
And there were two young guys,and they'd come out of the UN
behind me, and one of them saidto the other, Do you know what
that why why that chair has hasonly three legs?
(12:15):
And the other one said, uh Idon't know, just some diplomatic
stuff.
So here's my question.
Do you think, since you're theyoungest here, that the younger
generation is is too far awayfrom the consciousness of why we
drafted these internationallaws?
SPEAKER_16 (12:32):
I think uh they might not call them
international laws.
Um they use differentvocabulary, but I I think that
young people today are, and Iwouldn't necessarily count
myself as one of them since I'muh a little bit older, but uh
younger than us.
Come on.
I think people, I think youngpeople really do care.
(12:53):
They don't call it internationallaw, but there's a where all we
have a sense of right and wronggrounded within us.
I'd like to believe we stillhave that, and so they uh sense
when something is justinherently wrong and and uh
intuitively wrong, so and arestill prepared today to protest
to stand up against thesewrongs.
(13:15):
So it might not be in thatlanguage, but I think there is a
sense of injustice.
We see it in the fight forclimate justice.
SPEAKER_14 (13:23):
The UN's highest court has ruled that climate
change is an urgent andexistential threat.
The ruling came in response to acase brought by the island state
of Vanuatu.
The court added that failing toprotect the planet from the
effects of climate change couldbe a violation of international
law.
SPEAKER_04 (13:40):
Thousands of kilometers away from the Pacific
Ocean.
A clear and unanimous decisionwith far-reaching consequences
for island peoples.
SPEAKER_16 (13:55):
The International Court of Justice's opinion that
was issued this summer, that wasuh an opinion that came from a
classroom in Vanuatu and someyoung students who decided, you
know, what can internationallaws do for us, recognizing that
climate change is a violation ofour human rights.
And you saw countries, I can'tremember how many countries it
(14:17):
was, but a record number ofcountries who were who spoke at
that hearing, at those hearingsat the end of last year and
brought attention to that.
I think I think there are stillpeople activating those buttons
and finding creative ways tomake those laws work for them.
Or at least maybe that's theyoung, the youth in me that
still hopes.
SPEAKER_05 (14:36):
I wonder though, and you Danny and Nico, you tell me
this as well.
I do wonder whether there'squite an awareness, though, that
international law is based on onabsolutes in some way.
There is an absolute prohibitionon torture.
Or if you've signed up to thelandmine convention, there is an
absolute prohibition basicallyon you using the anti-personnel
(15:00):
landmines.
And yet, with the landmineconvention, the argument, and we
see countries withdrawing fromit now, is they're in the
Baltics, they have borders withRussia, is Russia is going to
use them against us, so weshould be able to use them
against them.
A few years ago, theInternational Committee of the
Red Cross did a survey onattitudes to torture, and it was
(15:22):
among younger people that theyqualified the absolute
prohibition.
They said if we can get usefulinformation that might prevent
an attack, we can torturepeople.
So I'm wondering, Nico, Danny,do you do we need more
education?
I think Casmira as well, what doyou think?
SPEAKER_06 (15:40):
I'm not sure it's education.
Uh I think what's happened, uh,you want to see why we're in a
different situation today.
It's a question of threshold.
When you have a treaty or anorm, there is a threshold that
says you can't do this.
Obviously, certain people statesare going to violate it.
How much violation can there bebefore the treaty or the norm
(16:05):
becomes invalid?
And I think we're seeing a levelof violation that is
extraordinary.
And it's that level that haspeople saying this is
disregarded, why should we beinterested?
Look at the people who do thatand look at how many people do
that.
That's something I think wehaven't seen.
SPEAKER_05 (16:24):
Nico, do you agree with that?
SPEAKER_13 (16:25):
Um Yeah, I'd agree with that, but I think there's
also something broader going on.
I mean, we've seen surveys,right, about the rise of
anti-liberal or illiberalattitudes, and especially among
younger men, I think, more thanwomen, even.
So there might be a broadershift in attitudes also kind of
that makes people turn towardsuh kind of softening some
(16:46):
prohibitions.
But I think there's also there'smaybe something more going on,
and that goes a bit to thecontrast and why people are
turning to, say, theInternational Court of Justice
now, right?
There's a different expectation,different hope around
international law, I think,today, than there was maybe, I
imagine, in the 70s or 80s.
We have many rules today thatare much more ambitious than
(17:08):
they used to be.
The Landmines Convention is oneof them, right?
People wouldn't have hoped inthe 1970s to get this off the
ground.
It was something that could bedone in the 1990s.
So we have a set of ambitiousrules.
We have the InternationalCriminal Court, things that also
were unthinkable to an extentbefore.
SPEAKER_05 (17:24):
But would they be thinkable now?
They were thinkable in the1990s.
SPEAKER_13 (17:28):
I think if somebody today proposed to create an
international criminal court,that would be laughed at.
SPEAKER_06 (18:54):
Nico, not to be the New York Cynic, but that's what
Imogen wants me to do.
You can give me all the justicessaying X about Gaza, about
Netanyahu.
You can give me all the decisionof the International Criminal
Court.
Show me the results.
Show me when Putin comes toAlaska.
Show me when Netanyahu comes tothe White House.
(19:17):
Where are the results of thedecisions being made that you
claim the world was waiting tohear?
SPEAKER_05 (19:23):
Well, instead, the judges are being sanctioned.
SPEAKER_08 (19:26):
We start in the United States where Donald Trump
has denounced the InternationalCriminal Court, accusing it of
illegitimate and baselessactions against the US and
Israel.
SPEAKER_05 (19:59):
American tech agarchs.
SPEAKER_16 (20:01):
New word, everybody.
And on that, I think the uh theICC has its uh annual meetings
this week where where it isasking itself some of these
fundamental existentialquestions of what where its
future lives, can it continue tooperate next year if uh if it's
continued to be hit by bysanctions and uh and also if it
if its warrants proveineffective against countries
(20:24):
that don't uphold them.
So I think that there's some bigquestions being asked at the
moment on the future of the ICCand others.
But I I was going to add beforejust a small point to say that
also with at the same time thebirth of all these treaties and
talk of international law alsogives The kind of violators of
those laws or states' languageto use to their advantage as
(20:46):
well.
I mean, it gives them avocabulary to kind of justify
their actions and their wrongs.
And that's also dangerous inthis world we live in today
where everything is broadcastand communicated on different
platforms.
So that's um, you know, that'salso given them also a powerful
tool, whether it's, you know,Vladimir Putin justifying his
(21:07):
invasion of Ukraine or, youknow, the many other countless
examples.
SPEAKER_05 (21:11):
I wanted to get on to particularly the situation
we're in right now, because 2025has seen some pretty shocking
things which seem to be we'vealways seen shocking things, but
seem to be somehow toleratedmore.
SPEAKER_11 (21:29):
The IPC report says 16 children under the age of
five have died of hunger-relatedcauses since mid-July.
It is a famine.
The Gaza famine.
SPEAKER_18 (21:39):
All members of the United Nations Security Council,
with the exception of the US,have said that the famine in
Gaza is man-made.
SPEAKER_10 (21:49):
We're learning new details about one of those
deadly US strikes on allegeddrug boats in the Caribbean.
Sources tell CNN the US militarycarried out a follow-up strike
on September 2nd.
SPEAKER_09 (21:59):
And today we're asking, has the Trump
administration committed warcrimes amid reports that the US
military killed two peopleclinging to wreckage in the sea
after they survived an initialairstrike on their boat?
SPEAKER_05 (22:12):
When I started this job in Geneva, it wasn't long
after the United States hadinvaded Iraq, which we know Kofi
Ann and the then SecretaryGeneral eventually said he felt
it was an illegal invasion.
And I I went to the WorldEconomic Forum and Dick Cheney,
the late Dick Cheney, was vicepresident, and he gave a speech
(22:32):
all about America's newdoctrine, and they wanted to
adjust the Geneva Convention.
The audience of leaders fromEurope and Latin America sat on
their hands.
He did not get a warm welcome.
And now we see with the UnitedStates, even from here in
Geneva, there's been very littleopen condemnation of, for
(22:56):
example, these attacks on theboats in the Caribbean.
We see now the United Statessiding with Russia at a UN
Security Council vote.
And Europe is a bit squashed inthe middle and a bit nervous, I
think.
I mean, before we started, Nico,you were saying you thought the
goalposts had really been moved.
SPEAKER_13 (23:17):
Yes, I think they they have been moved, maybe not
for everybody.
Um certainly I think that you'reright.
The Europeans are in a difficultposition uh strategically,
largely because they realizethat they depend on the US to
such an extent that they can beplayed pretty easily, right?
So I think kind of that has ofcourse lost them lots of
legitimacy, especially kind ofaround the Gaza war, in that
(23:41):
large parts of the rest of theworld kind of see them as
hypocritical, in a sense, kindof only speaking out when things
happen to their friends, but notwhen their own friends kind of
commit crimes.
So I think kind of that isreally a significant shift that
the Western world that wasalways seen to be upholding
those values of theinternational rule of law.
SPEAKER_05 (24:01):
And lecturing other people.
SPEAKER_13 (24:02):
And lecturing other people, that's right, kind of
have turned away from it, orclearly have turned away
whenever it does they don't suitthem so much.
So I think kind of that hasshifted.
I think for many others alsokind of the goalposts have been
moved because you cannot simplyrely on law compliance anymore
on so many issues.
So clearly this is gonna erodethe broader fabric of
(24:25):
international law, which asDanny rightly said, right,
depends on countries complyingin order for there to be a sense
that there is a legal system,right?
There's no other enforcement ofinternational law, typically
then international publicopinion and the reactions of
other states.
So clearly, in that sense, Ithink something something has
changed, but it has also changedto quite some extent from
(24:48):
Western-centric vision of theinternational legal order
towards a range of other statesin the South and in the East
claiming that international lawshould be complied with, and
with good reason, really.
SPEAKER_05 (25:13):
And with justification being accused of
double standards.
You we hear this at the UN HumanRights Council, Casmira.
You must have have heard this alot, that the global south is
just looking at the huge outcryover the invasion of Ukraine, a
justified outcry, and the um thecouple of whispers about Gaza.
Danny, you wanted to come in.
SPEAKER_06 (25:34):
Yeah, I mean, uh two short points.
First, um, Imogen, it's lovelythat you use the word shocking
because it shows a conscienceand it shows a certain
understanding of values that noteveryone shares.
But my main point, to come backto Nico, you're talking about
the West.
I mean, come on, let's talkabout the United States.
(25:54):
And the role recently, underTrump specifically, dealing with
multilateralism, dealing withliberal values, has had enormous
impact negatively oninternational law.
And there is no question, Nico,you said it's positive to some
extent that the law is movingout of Eurocentric, but on the
(26:16):
other hand, the United Stateswith European allies has always
been the leader inmultilateralism since the Second
World War.
And without the United States,in this aspect, I think it's
terribly damaging for the roleof international law.
And if you have a system in theUnited States today which is
(26:37):
constantly violatinginternational law, it's very
difficult to find anothercountry or a person who's going
to be Mr.
or the state that's going to bebehind international law.
And I think that has to be said.
SPEAKER_05 (26:51):
Do you think some people say we need to get on
with this without the UnitedStates?
Because they're so far out ofthe set out of the game now.
SPEAKER_16 (26:58):
I mean, they're centre of the tension, but
they're not center of the world.
And back to your point about thedouble standards, I think that's
definitely the narrative we heara lot here.
But at the same time, I I spoketo Alain Delittreux, who's head
of the Humanitarian and GeoGeneva Corps, that works with
non-state armed groups to tryand convince them to comply to
international law.
And he said that there wasn'tone country where they're
(27:20):
working with at the moment wherethe commanders don't mention
Gaza as a counterexample and askwhy they should respect IHL if
an official army doesn't.
But that doesn't mean after thatthat they don't then work with
them to put codes of conduct inplace.
I think, yes, that dialogue isthere.
But then beyond that, I thinkyou see developing countries
(27:42):
still very keen to still engagewith some of these mechanisms
like the universal periodicreview.
We saw the US not turn up to itsuniversal periodic review.
They didn't show up.
It's a precedent which uh manycountries would not be proud of,
but but there we are.
No, exactly.
But I think that does not meanthat other countries won't um I
(28:03):
mean the fear is that othercountries will then say, well,
why should we show up if theUnited States, the champion of
democracy and the one thefounders of the UN Charter isn't
why should we?
But I think you're still seeingcountries very still keen to
engage with some of thesemechanisms.
Do you think Nico?
SPEAKER_13 (28:22):
Yeah, I mean I I think among a large part of the
countries of the world, I thinkthey are keen to continue as
long as the system worksreasonably well.
Um but on the question of theUS, I completely agree with
Danny that the US has been amain pillar behind the
multilateral system andcertainly its construction,
right?
Without the US, we wouldn't havethe UN at all.
(28:42):
But at the same time, it has hadan ambivalent relationship with
multilateral institutions andtreaties for a long, long time.
If you look at the number oftreaties European countries have
signed compared to the number oftreaties the US has signed,
right?
There's a big gulf there.
And uh we've seen thisambivalence behind lots of
negotiations and institutions.
So, in a sense, it's never beenmerely kind of a nice and happy
(29:07):
story.
And now I think many morecountries say, well, okay, so
now we simply cannot count onthe US anymore.
If we are negotiations withthem, we know that they're not
going to sign this treaty.
We listen to them, but becausethey're not gonna come on board
anyway, we have to somehow carryon regardless and know that we
have to do it without them.
You got to the landminesconvention also without the US,
(29:29):
without the great militarypowers in principle, which of
course may have been a birthdefect of the convention from
the start, but it expressed aparticular moral sentiment of
large parts of the world, right,to outlaw those kinds of
horrible weapons.
And I think kind of the sensethat you, if you want to move
forward, you have to somehow youhave to find the right moral
compass, and then you have tokind of build as large a
(29:52):
coalition as possible around it,but it will often, at least for
the moment, not include the USand not Russia.
Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_05 (30:01):
Yeah, I mean, in fact, uh in the last episode of
Inside Geneva, we talked aboutCOP 30, and some of the people I
talked to said it was actuallyeasier not to have the United
States there.
Danny, you wanted to come in,and then I've got one last
question.
SPEAKER_06 (30:13):
Yeah, I mean, the question of the moral compass is
a complicated one, Nico.
Someone once told me a wonderfulstory.
When the United States used toviolate or do things,
international law, the Presidentor the Secretary of State would
go to the legal advisor to theState Department and say, I'm
gonna do this, justify it.
Now they don't even ask.
(30:33):
And that's a fundamental change.
Fundamental change.
And I think the world looks atthat and the double standard
that committed.
That's the double standard.
Why should we do it when lookwhat they're doing?
Therefore, there's not a leadertoday who is the moral compass
and says, no, this is totallyunacceptable.
We don't even have the Swissdefending the Geneva Conventions
(30:55):
as I think they ought to.
So we have a lack of leadershiphere, and I think there's
something negative there, Nico,in terms of promoting
international law.
SPEAKER_05 (31:05):
You said about what's changed and not asking
whether we can do this or not.
While I was preparing for thispodcast, I was reading about
this book by Giuliano da Empoli,The Hour of the Predator, and
what he's writing about, and Ihave to be honest, I haven't
read the whole thing, that thereis a new populist class of
political predators and digitalconquistadors.
(31:28):
What a phrase, huh?
And he basically is arguing thatthese people bonded together,
and we have seen that in theUnited States, haven't we?
With the business community, thepolitical class and the tech
giants, that they are basicallysaying there's a load of stuff
we just don't need, like anindependent judiciary, and
international law wouldn't fallinto that.
(31:49):
So I'm just wondering, we shouldoffer our listeners some
optimism at the end of the show.
Is that what's coming?
And is it a bad thing?
Or are we going to be able tohang on to these, I mean, these
fundamental principles, which Ithought they were fundamental
and were sticking around.
Who wants to go first?
SPEAKER_06 (32:08):
I mean, you raise the question, Imogen, of the
thin line between the public andthe private.
What I think is positive is thatwe're living in a world that's
more and more interdependent.
If a flood happens in Asia, if astarvation famine happens in
another region, we all knowabout it.
So in that sense, the complexinterdependency we're seeing
(32:32):
means that we have to react oneway or another to what's going
on.
Therefore, because we're morecosmopolitan, there has to be
basic fundamental ways that theworld, the system, has an order.
We're in a certain sense inanarchy today about certain
things, but certain thingsfunction.
(32:53):
And I think that interdependencewill lead us out of the problems
we have today to something morepositive.
SPEAKER_16 (33:00):
Well, that is that at least is positive.
Casmira, you got your hand up.
I'm I'm piggybacking on thatbecause I do think that the way
that certain leaders today areacting is not sustainable.
And so perhaps for a certaintime we can do away with
cherry-picking bits of treatiesand laws that they like best.
But at some point there's gonnabe a reaction to that, and at
(33:21):
that point we're gonna have toneed to fill that void, and it's
gonna be climate change, it'sgonna be massive natural
disasters where we're forced towork together, and there's no
denying that.
I mean, he can deny climate allhe wants, but there's gonna be
some point where even the UnitedStates is going to need help
from other nations.
Nico, you've been waiting.
SPEAKER_05 (33:39):
You had your hand up first.
SPEAKER_13 (33:40):
Oh, so so many things to to say.
Well, and kind of clearly I'mnot in the great mood for
optimism, I have to say.
If you ask us to be optimistic,but uh how optimistic can we be,
right?
If over the last 15 yearsFreedom House has reported a
decline in democratic valuesacross the world kind of year
after year.
I think there's a serious crisisof liberal democracy, of the
(34:04):
idea of rights, of protections,of popular participation that we
have to face.
And that will reflect intointernational law, international
institutions.
So I think kind of that'ssomething we is probably going
to shape much of the law that wesee, and it might not be the
best law that we might imagine,right, if we come from a liberal
democratic perspective.
(34:24):
At the same time, I thinkbecause of that interdependence,
countries need to cooperatesomehow.
Now, one shouldn't think thatjust because we have
interdependence, countriesimmediately cooperate, right?
There's still a large step to bemade.
Climate, clearly, kind of a sortof a very big uh big problem
that we're not tackling as much.
But clearly, lots of countrieshave a need and a will to
(34:45):
cooperate.
And also a language, right?
Sort of I was at a conference inChina a couple of months ago,
and of course, everybody wastalking about as if
multilateralism was the onlything that you can talk about in
foreign policy.
Now, however, one might take itwith a grain of salt, but uh
nevertheless, there is stillmuch more of a rhetoric than you
see in the US, where taking theword international law into your
(35:08):
mouth makes sure that you're notgoing to be heard in the
administration.
So, kind of you don't want towant to do that.
I think really kind of the turnfrom interdependence to
cooperation will come primarilyfrom countries that are not the
great powers.
They can often do withoutothers, or they think they can
do without others.
Probably they cannot, but ittakes them longer to see that.
But it's smaller and middlepowers, I think, kind of that
(35:30):
are likely to carry whateverwill come next.
And then hopefully we'll get theothers somewhere on board.
But for them, it is much morecrucial to work with others in
order to solve the problems theyhave.
They simply cannot go it alone.
SPEAKER_05 (35:43):
Well, I second that.
I I also think that there'sgoing to have to be more
cooperation of the like-mindedwhen it comes to these
fundamental standards.
I also want to leave on a noteof optimism, but I am worried.
I am worried about this predatorpopulist big tech, that this
(36:04):
grouping doesn't seem to havetime for the law unless it suits
them.
And that would includeinternational law and the basic
international human rights law.
I'm reminded where we startedwith the Second World War, that
we got these laws because wemade some awful, awful, awful
mistakes and committed someterrible crimes.
(36:25):
And what I really hope is thatwe don't have to reinvent all
these stuff because we made thesame mistakes again.
But let's hope not.
The fact that we're even heresitting talking about it is a
good sign.
That brings us to the end ofthis edition of Inside Geneva.
Thank you all very much.
Danny Warner, Nico Krisch,Casmira Jefford.
Next time on Inside Geneva, justa little reminder: despite all
(36:49):
the cuts in humanitarianfunding, there are aid workers
posted all over the world who inDecember, many of them will be
spending their time away fromtheir families and their friends
and their homes because they areworking in places like Ukraine
or in South Sudan.
And we're going to be hearingfrom three of them.
(37:11):
So tune in on the 23rd ofDecember for a holiday special.
I'm Imogen folks.
Thanks for listening.
A reminder you've been listeningto Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info
production.
(37:31):
You can subscribe to us andreview us wherever you get your
podcasts.
Check out our previous episodeshow the International Red Cross
unites prisoners of war withtheir families, or why survivors
of human rights violations turnto the UN in Geneva for justice.
I'm Imogen Folks.
(37:52):
Thanks again for listening.
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