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I meant international law as law governing relations between different nations, not within one nation. For example, there are repeated claims that Israel violates some international laws due to occupation of the West Bank and naval blockade of Gaza strip; that the settlements are illegal under the international law; and also some other international laws were violated during conflicts with Gaza and other neighboring countries. What does this mean and who gets to decide?

I am assuming the Saddam Hossein violated something when attacking Kuweit, and Russia probably also violated something when annexing Crimea. Are there international laws that dictate the rules here, and if so who gets to choose them?

When it comes to the country's internal decisions, the international law is much less relevant, though it's still a good question whether it is our moral obligation to intervene, or at least to apply more pressure to countries like North Korea, Syria, or Saudi Arabia to name just a few.






If there was mention of spesific laws that were broken then the details can be found in those documents. If nothing specific is mentioned then it means very little. It is very clear that annexing areas that are not yours is a hostile action. That some annexings are "doubly" wrong is pretty irrelevant. What is more suprising is that this kind of language use suggest that there could be such thing as a legal annexing or a legal attack. It would be like arguing that some murders are legal. It is pretty redundant to say that a murder was illegal. However things like use of violence in immidiate self defence doesn't constitute a murder. Similalry militarily resisting an annexing is way more defensible than an unprovoked assault of conquest.

Before when law was less developed there were issues with things like witch-burnings and such. In the begining there was no restriction on what a group can pick as the reason to gang up on one that violates social norms. As things progressed some things were defined as crimes and those were valid reasons to engage in violent norm enforcement. All other violence was started to be regarded as illegimate.

When it comes to countries as entities they have not entered into these kinds of relationships between themself. That is interpersonal law is a thing but internatioal law isn't a thing. For example when Nazi Germany did things that other entities found worrying everybody just ganged up on the violator. Similar behaviour on the individual level would be called mob-justice and there would be an inquiry why the issue was not given to the police to handle. But on the state level there is no police department to call.

There are some norms that are stronger than national culture. For example the institution of a white flag. You are an extra bad guy if you commit offensive military action while under the white flag. In order for the institution of the white flag to succeed the parties of the war have to cooperate even if only trivially slightly. A party that is not involved with a war might get angry if they get to know that you shot a white flag carrier in a war. This is still not an uber strong guarantee that the norm is followed. While rules regarding white flags are codified the logic of how it smooths nations interacting with each other worked pretty strongly even before codification. There are also institutions on losing a war. That is typically a losing side might lose all its soldiers and its civilian population might be maltreated but it is usually left alive. That is not all wars are to the annihilation but only to the submission. It is not okay to summarily kill a lot of civilians from the losing side. This leads to the concept of a combatant and how taking military action makes you a fairer target to be killed in a war.

People have tried to make the development of these kinds of norms faster. One is allowing doctors and other humanitarian personel to operate without being shot in a scene of war (and treatment of patients regardless of side). But these haven't been totally successfull. You still have fair chance of being shot despite being a medic. Usually when things get tough they simply are not followed if the strategic situation calls for it. That is while it is pretty clear on the interpersonal law that if a law is passed them it is approximately followed. However what would constitue a "passing" on the international scene is still on the flux. Intrapersonal equivalent would be like people agreeing to the law until it applies to them (by for example agreeing that if somebody steals a bread from you you can't kill them where they are standing, but when somebody takes their bread they kill the thief in a fit of emotion) or holding trials where crime definition and evidence plays no role but the decision is arrived at via peoples willingness to hurt the accused (ie a witch-burning in the guise of a trial) or that law applies only to the despised and popular persons are exempt.
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