Observers of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are accustomed to constant appeals to “international law.” International law, the wisdom instructs us, is not something you want to be on the wrong side of.

So it’s refreshing to read Norman Geras’s take on this, which is stimulated by events not in the Middle East, but in Zimbabwe, where the Mugabe regime becomes more criminal with each day.

Says Norm:

…[T]he regime of international law, that is, the framework of institutions that is meant to uphold international law, should be held in contempt by all those committed to democracy and human rights, so long as and to the extent that those institutions are merely a cover for inaction and/or connive at the most blatant criminality by states against their own peoples…How can a citizen of any country respect a legal system which essentially stands by to the criminality of governments that have a place in the very councils whose task it is to strengthen international law? Countenancing the rape, torture and murder of Zimbabweans that system thereby countenances the rape, torture and murder of anybody, and therefore of you too. For the principle is a general one: it’s not that Mugabe’s thugs may destroy this man or this woman; it’s that a government, a regime, may get away with killing those under its jurisdiction for all that the agencies of international law are likely to do about it. That is not a legal system to be esteemed. The publics of democratic countries also have an obligation in this regard. We should not accept, we should denounce, a system of law that accommodates such things.

Read the rest.