Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the Israeli campaign, which an ever-growing consensus of international legal experts and rights organisations view as a genocide. But the international system of norms, laws, and institutions that has been developed over time to mitigate the worst effects of conflicts on civilians has also been thrown into crisis by what Tom Dannenbaum termed, in a recent interview with The New Humanitarian, “the backlash of the powerful”.

Dannenbaum is a professor of international law at Stanford University in the United States. The New Humanitarian spoke with him to understand what is happening with the various international legal cases being undertaken in response to Israel’s conduct in Gaza and what consequences are being imposed on the system of international law for taking up these efforts.

“It’s not taking on Israel that has precipitated a crisis for international law,” Dannenbaum said. “It’s the fact of brazen violations of international law by a powerful state that is underwritten by the most powerful state in the international system, namely the United States, that has created the crisis.”

“There is a sense that emerging from this moment is going to require more than just weathering the storm. It’s going to require something more fundamental in terms of rehabilitating and reconstructing the system,” he added.