Israel-Iran War: International Law and the Dilemma of the Undesirable Regime
BACKGROUND
1)James Rowles, “[CORRECTED] Israel-Iran war: Let us all remember the United Nations Charter and international law, Trenchant Observations, June 14, 2025.
We are living through some of the saddest days in our nation’s history.
Donald Trump, our ignorant and incompetent president, failed to prevent Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from launching a war of aggression against Iran, which increasingly seems to be aimed at overthrowing the Iranian regime.
According to news reports, Netanyahu wanted to kill Iran’s leader Ayatolla Khamanei, but was blocked from doing so by Donald Trump. Israel has been killing Iran’s top leaders, including the head of the Revolutionary Guards and the intelligence head of the Revolutionary guards, through targeted assassinations.
Netanyahu in launching Israel’s war of aggression against Iran appears to have committed the international crime of aggression, following the precedent of the Nazi war criminals who were convicted in 1946 at the Nuremberg Trials of the same crime, then called “crimes against peace”.
Netanyahu has thus added to the list of international war crimes of which he is apparently guilty. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has already issued international arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Israel defense minister Yoav Galant for the commission of crimes against humanity in Gaza.
President Donald Trump is apparently complicit in the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza due to his continued military aid and likely intelligence and other cooperation with Israel in carrying out its war crimes in the enclave.
It is likely that Trump and other American officials have also been complicit in Israel’s commission of war crimes in its war against Iran, including its commission of the international crime of aggression.
So, has international law become irrelevant?
More generally, does law become irrelevant when it is violated?
Has the law against murder become irrelevant following the assassination of the Democratic Speaker of the state House of Representatives and her husband in Minnesota and the attempted assassination of another Democratic legislator and his wife, also in Minnesota, on June 14, 2025?
In my view, law does not become irrelevant when it is violated.
What is important in both situations is that the crimes be denounced and condemned, and that the authors of these crimes be held accountable. Such action reaffirms and strengthens the validity of the norm that has been violated.
It is important that nations and government officials, in countries throughout the world, denounce the Israeli war crimes in Gaza and Netanyahu’s and Israel’s commission of the international crimes of aggression, against Iran, and that earnest efforts be made by the ICC and others to bring those responsible to account.
Otherwise India could invade Pakistan and seek to overthrow its government, or nations might view Vladimir Putin’s invasion and attempt to overthrow the government of Ukraine as legitimate.
International anarchy would see governments sending their special ops teams into rival countries to assassinate its leaders in order to produce regime change, as their military forces attacked or invaded the target country to help achieve the desired result.
The dilemmas involved in trying to overthrow an “undesirable regime are explored in “The United States, the OAS, and the Dilemma of the Undesirable Regime” an article I published many years ago but which is of current relevance. It is the subject of a recent podcast by Richard Price, the founder of Academia.edu, a platform which informs scholars whenever one of their articles is read, anywhere in the world.
See,
James P. Rowles, “The United States, the OAS, and the Dilemma of the Undesirable Regime,” The Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, vol. 13, pp. 385-410 (1983).
Richard Price, Podcast, Academia.edu., June 2025.
https://www.academia.edu/ai_podcast/58433487
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About the Author
James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.
He studied the history of Nazi Germany at Stanford, and has studied and worked on human rights, judicial reform, and access to justice projects in many countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and in Afghanistan and Russia. At Harvard Law School, he taught a course on “Law, Human Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America”.
At the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, he worked on human rights cases involving forced disappearances, executions, and torture in anumber of authoritarian countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Recent Books by the Author
James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024). Available on Amazon, and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.
James P. Rowles, Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump (2024). Available on Amazon,and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.
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