Russia Damages E.U. Diplomatic Offices: Implications for International Law

Even though the Vienna Convention of 1961 includes protections for diplomatic and consular properties in active war-zones, Russia’s attack of 629 missiles and drones on Kiev, Ukraine, came within 50 meters of the E.U.’s diplomatic offices there late on August 27, 2025, severely damaging them but killing nobody in the E.U.’s delegation. The two bombs that hit nearby were enough to give the Europeans the impression that President Putin of Russia did not consider himself bound by international law in war. To the extent that fighting between two sovereign countries, Russia and Ukraine, fits Hobbes’ infamous state of nature, international law is really not law at all, for jurisprudence, including mutually acknowledged rights, requires an overarching polity to enact and enforce laws. So the E.U. could not enjoy a right to be sparred death and destruction at its diplomatic offices in Kiev during the war there, but the Union could claim another right at Russia’s expense within the E.U.’s territory.

After the bombing, the E.U.’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said of it, “It shows that the Kremlin will stop at nothing to terrorize Ukraine, blindly killing civilians—men, women and children and even targeting the European Union.”[1] Even though it was not clear that two bombs going off in the vicinity necessarily means that Putin was targeting the E.U., António Costa, chairman of the European Council, which represents the state governments, stated, “The EU will not be intimidated. Russia’s aggression only strengthens our resolve to stand with Ukraine and its people.”[2] In return for the E.U. having just come in close contact with brazen Russian military might, E.U. President Von der Leyen “promised to tighten the screws on the Russian war machine with a 19^th package of EU sanctions.”[3] That so many so-called packages had already not worked gives little credibility to what a 19^th might do in terms of making a difference to Russia’s war calculus.

Fortunately, Von der Leyen said that the E.U. would work at the federal level “on new ways to further mobilize Russia’s frozen assets, worth about €210 billion, that are “on EU soil, to finance Ukraine’s defence capabilities and reconstruction.”[4] Even though international law put constraints on confiscation of the funds, and an E.U. spokesperson said the efforts would continue to pertain to “the windfall profits, rather than the money itself,” I contend that if it can be proved that Russia had violated international laws militarily in Ukraine, the E.U. should be released of any legal and moral obligation not to confiscate the frozen Russian assets.[5] It would be unfair to Ukraine, as well as the E.U., were international law to be applied to only one side while the other ignores the very existence of law internationally in line with how Hobbes describes the state of nature prior to any social contract.

It was obvious at the time that Ukraine could use any additional military support that could come from the E.U. confiscating the frozen Russian assets in the E.U., but perhaps even more significant would be the decision that could be taken on whether international law itself pertains to the war. In deciding that no law applies to both sides because of a lack of de jure and de facto recognition by both sides and enforcement, the question of even whether there is such a thing as international law—whether jurisprudence applies in a domain in which enforcement mechanisms are lacking, whether institutionally, as by a militarized international federation or a coalition of the willing.

The lack of any enforcement can be distinguished from a weakness in enforcement or even an abject failure of an extant enforcement effort. That no enforcement mechanism existed at least as of 2025 on international law arguably renders such “law” as merely wishes by some people or organizations. If Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu were able to treat international law as such, this is all that would be required to render international law as something less than law itself. For other people to continue to refer to international law would be an error predicated on a mere wish rather than being a statement of fact. A dictum could be presented to the world wherein international agreements cannot, or at least should not, be labeled as law unless credible enforcement mechanisms exist; by credible, I mean likely to be efficacious in constraining culprit governments. In short, federal officials of the E.U. should not feel constrained by international law on confiscating the frozen assets, just as Russia’s President Putin had been ignoring international “law” in having invaded a sovereign country. With so many obvious attacks on civilians and kidnapping of Ukrainian children, taking them inside Russia far from Ukraine, the very concept of international law goes out the window.

Applied to Russia and Israel in 2025, the invasions would have had to be stopped with the invaders pushed back for there to be such a thing as an international law against invasion (or targeting civilians). To claim that there is such a thing as international law while a genocide or even holocaust is underway unimpeded involves cognitive dissidence, if not an abject refusal to think at all. In Cameron’s film, Titanic, an employee of the ship tells third-class passengers that they cannot go through a passageway only to be knocked into the rising water by Dawson. Without enforcement, the employee can only be regarded as strongly expressing a desire. Similarly, a food-aide or medical-aide worker in Gaza could shout again and again at Israeli tanks, you can’t come into Gaza City, but if those tanks keep rolling in, it is not as though the worker would be supposing that a law is being broken, for there is no viable enforcement to force the Israelis out of Gaza; not even a coalition of the willing had emerged to do so in more than a year. Netanyahu could easily dismiss such shouting as pleas rather than even a demand, much less a law. Anyone watching the tanks continue onward would regard any onlooker making a demand as crazy. I submit that it is just as crazy to refer to international law in the context of the Russian and Israeli invasions in the mid-2020's.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU Delegation in Kyiv Severely Damaged by Shock Wave of Russian Strike,” Euronews.com, August 28, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU Summons Russian Envoy after Strike Damaged the Bloc’s Delegation in Kyiv,” Euronews.com, August 28, 2025.

Israel Invades Syria Preemptively without Declaring War: A New Norm?

In the wake of the downfall of Syria’s Assad in December, 2024, that he had used chemical weapons against civilians in rebel areas against international law not only means that the victors of the coup would have ready access to chemical stockpiles, but also justifies other governments in breaking Syria’s national sovereignty by bombing the locations at which the noxious chemicals were being stored. This does not justify, however, governments hostile to Syria invading the country and destroying its military. Otherwise, the norm could be established, as valid, that any time there is a coup in a country, it is “open season” (a hunting expression) for any government in the world to snatch up territory and destroy the military. Although absolute sovereignty, which ignores international law, is too much, presuming a country with a new government to be valid prey goes too far in the other direction. I contend that both absolutist and nullified national sovereignty are contrary to the interests of the whole—the global order—wherein the protection of human rights (and thus international law) is in the interest of humanity especially given the horrendous destructiveness that a government can have against its own people and other countries in the nuclear age.

Just after the Assad regime folded, the BBC reported, “Israel has confirmed it carried out attacks on Syria’s naval fleet, as part of [Israel’s] efforts to neutralize military assets [in Syria] after the fall of the Assad regime.”[1] Fifteen vessels were docked at the port of Latakia. Israel also announced, moreover, that “its warplanes had conducted more than 350 air strikes on targets across Syria, while moving ground forces into the demilitarized buffer zone between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights.”[2] Just three days after that announcement, CNN reported that Israel had struck "nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out . . . 90% of Syria's known surface-to-air missiles."[3] Essentially, the Israeli government was taking advantage of the momentary weakness of a transitioning foreign goverment to rid a sovereign nation of its right to a military. 

Israel’s defense minister said Israel wanted to “destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel.”[4] Because Syria had not been militarily active against Israel, the threat was not actual, but only potential. Israel said it invaded Syrian territory “to prevent attacks on its citizens.”[5] Israel had “a long history of seizing territory during wars with its neighbors and occupying it indefinitely, citing security concerns.”[6]

Israel invades Syria, taking the highest mountain there. (Source: CNN)

It seems that Israel no longer felt the need to bomb and invade another country during a war, as neither the media nor Israel would admit that bombings and an invasion constitute war. The implication, should Israel’s actions to rid another country of its military become the norm internationally, is that it is ok to eliminate the entire military (i.e., not just chemical weapons) of any country that finds itself in a brief interregnum following a coup (or power dispute) and whose military is even just potentially a threat or even just a security concern. This essentially opens the door to unfettered aggression anytime another country’s government is temporarily weak. Is it not the case that national sovereignty includes the right to have a military, or is that right conditional on the approval of the Israeli government? 

Such a squalid, opportunistic norm would not only violate international law, but would fall under the theory of political realism wherein states follow their own strategic interests unfettered by international norms or law. Hobbes’ state of nature is also relevant, as Israel’s military aggression against another sovereign country follows the dictum that might makes right. Syria had not ceased being a country, and the mutually-agreed-upon demilitarized zone was so obviously contracted, and thus violated, by Israel’s ground invasion that situated military forces in the zone that no justification save the law of the jungle could be sited by the Israeli government.

That Russia had unilaterally invaded Ukraine in 2023 and was still doing so as Israel was attacking and invading Syria could be enough to give the underpinning norm some de facto grounding to potentially become de facto valid, or at least more widely acted upon and with impunity. During Israel’s invasion of Syria, the media in both the E.U. and U.S. notably did not refer to the military action as a war, as would be expected when one country bombs and invades another country. With both Russia and Israel acting as kingdoms seeking empire militarily, it could be concluded that the “modern” twenty-first century was not fundamentally different than world history, as evinced by the Qing Dynasty (especially Emperor Kangi) in China, the ancient Romans, the Mongols, Alexander the Great, and the various European colonial empires. 

After all, even with the promise of genetic engineering, human nature was still pretty much unchanged since the incremental changes through the process of evolution during the long, prehistoric hunter-gatherer stage. Put another way, human nature has been a constant from the ancient military invaders to Russia and Israel in the (technologically) “advanced” 21^st century. In political-military matters, the raw power opportunism in modernity belies any claim to political development in international relations, even taking into account the impotent UN. 

It seems unfathomable even to contemplate whether international relations were gradually returning to the dark ages of the state of nature in which aggression and political realism—essentially self-interest--are the only real guidelines. The trajectory unleashed by Russia and Israel in the century following two world wars—the second having ended with two nuclear bombs—does not bode well for humanity, whose exploding population and related energy pollution could render the question of unfettered international aggression moot. 

At the very least, it is not at all antisemitic to label bombing and a military invasion as a war—and an unprovoked one at that, seeking the total destruction of another (sovereign!) country's military. A world of preemptive strikes based on security concerns to rid undesireable countries of their very defenses may be what humanity may be heading for since the U.S. invaded Iraq at the beginning of the “post-modern” century ostensibly to remove weapons of mass destruction. It seems to me that the emerging norm being foisted on the world by Israel and Russia is itself a weapon of mass destruction.

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1. Jacqueline Howard, “Israel Confirms Attack on Syrian Navel Fleet,” BBC.com, December 10, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Mick Krever, "Why Israel Captured Syria's Tallest Mountain Just Hours After Assad Fell," CNN.com, December 14, 2024.

4. Jacqueline Howard, “Israel Confirms Attack on Syrian Navel Fleet.”
5. Rory E. Armstrong, “Israel Strikes Syrian Military Sites While Troops Move into Golan Heights Buffer Zone,” Euronews.com, December 10, 2024.
6. Ibid.

On the Impotency of International Law in a System of Sovereign States: The Case of Gaza

The sheer brazenness with which countries ironically recognized as being sovereign states by international law ignore international law even in regard to human rights that seeks to place boundaries on said sovereignty reflects the impotency of international law, and thus even that which recognizes national sovereignty itself. For the rest of us, continuing to believe that upcoming cases before the International Court of Justice, the UN’s court, are of consequence and thus even worth paying attention to, demonstrates abject stupidity, as if we were herd animals without learning curves. Admittedly, the stubborn, self-aggrandizing governments are ethically worse than the world’s population that lets such governments blatantly and even explicitly ignore judicial rulings of the International Court of Justice (and the European Court of Human Rights), but culpability can also be gleamed from the public’s truly pathetic irrational belief that another case against a country that has just ignored a verdict of that very court might just work in curtailing human-rights abuses and outright, even genocide-scale, aggression that outstrips even the sin of retaliation. Either I am blind or the proverbial emperor is not wearing any clothes.

As a case in point, in January, 2024, the International Court of Justice announced its preliminary ruling on Israel’s military incursion into Gaza. “The state of Israel shall . . . take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the Genocide Convention,” the court announced.[1] The court had not reached a verdict on whether Israel was committing a genocide, and but was saying that one could be in progress and thus Israel is obliged to see that it does not, and this includes allowing more humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinians. The health ministry in Gaza had reported that thousands of women and children were among the more than 25,000 people killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, which did not “differentiate between civilians and Hamas fighters.”[2] In addition, more than a million Palestinians there had become homeless. Because only 1,200 Israelis had died in the Hamas attack in October, 2023, the scale of the harm in Gaza is beyond the scope of “an eye for an eye” and retribution or retaliation.

Because we humans have flawed judgment concerning punishment for those who harm us, John Locke of the 17^th century in Europe claimed that a major legitimating function of a government is in providing impartial judges so that vigilantes don’t have to dispense justice in their own cases. He wrote, “it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends . . . therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men.”[3] We are too violent a species to be able to be fair judges against people who have rendered us as victims. I submit that this holds for sovereign states, which are in a state of nature, Locke insisted, with each other because there is no higher human power that can restrain their lust for violence that goes beyond justice and even retaliation. This is precisely why an international court with no enforcement power, such as in the UN having its own military force with which to “remind” wayward states that they had agreed to be bound by international law. The lack of any such army is, I submit, the proverbial elephant in the room that no one wants to recognize and discuss. By the way, this is precisely why I view my non-academic short essays as a form of charity to my species in spite of itself. I don’t ask whether it deserves it—only whether my ideas can possibly help it. I suppose I am benevolent in spite of myself, for I am human, all too human.

Before the court’s preliminary decision, Israeli Prime Minister Ben Netanyahu had said that Israel’s “commitment to international law is unwavering,” and yet he added that the “charge of genocide levelled against Israel is not only false, it’s outrageous, and decent people should reject it.”[4] He would doubtless not be a fair judge in his own case, as he would doubtless throw that case out without letting it be heard. This is precisely why an international court is crucial, and, furthermore, that it must have a direct enforcement mechanism such that its verdicts will stick rather than be dismissed by a guilty defendant.

In its preliminary decision (not yet ruling on whether Israel was committing a genocide), “the court said Israel must restrain from the destruction of infrastructure, should support more humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza strip and prevent calls to commit genocide against the Palestinian people.”[5] In reaction to the decision, Netanyahu said, “Israel has an inherent right to defend itself.”[6] Exactly two weeks later, he announced that he had “ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli invasion” of the city.[7] Rafah had been home to 280,000 people, but the addition of other Palestinians made homeless in other parts of Gaza increased the city’s population to 1.5 million.[8] Forcing that many people to move in a short time span could itself be considered a violation of human rights if not part of a genocide. Also, the planned invasion itself would likely violate the court’s decision, which specified that Israel must not destroy the infrastructure in Gaza any further.

As for the court’s insistence that Israel let in more humanitarian aid, Israel actually “imposed financial restrictions on the main U.N. agency providing aid in the Gaza Strip, a measure which prevented a shipment of food for 1.1 million Palestinians” in Gaza.[9] Not even on a humanitarian basis was the Israeli government willing to heed the decision of the court whose jurisdiction Israel had agreed to, and whose law Netanyahu himself had said he respects so much.

There should thus be scarcely any doubt as to whether Israel would adhere to the court’s decision on a case set to begin on February 19, 2024 “into the legality of Israel’ 57-year occupation of land sought for a Palestinian state.”[10] Rather than focusing on Israel’s war with Hamas, that case concerns “Israel’s open-ended occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.”[11] Palestinian representatives planned to “argue that the Israeli occupation is illegal because it has violated three key tenets” of international law: “the prohibition on territorial conquest by annexing large swaths of occupied land,” the “Palestinians’ right to self-determination,” and the prohibition of “a system of racial discrimination and apartheid.”[12] In reading about the upcoming case, I felt an instantaneous rush of hope that the issue that had led to the Hamas attack in 2023 might finally be definitively decided by a neutral court rather than by the warring parties themselves by sheer might and strife in lieu of weak negotiations and weak allies on both sides. I had momentarily neglected to consider Israel’s response to the court’s preliminary decision—namely in dismissing or ignoring it outright and perhaps even going even further by adding a forced exodus from Rafah before another ground invasion. If you tell another person not to sneeze in your face and yet it not only happens again, but at an even closer range, you would naturally conclude that it will happen again unless some obstacle is brought to bear on that person. My point is that an international system in which there are no viable and enforced constraints on state-actors is incompatible with there being real obstacles on the wayward states. Relying on pressure from allies or even an impromptu coalition “of the willing” is not reliable enough to count on as a counterweight to such a severe flaw in the very fabric of an international system of unfettered sovereign nation-states.

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1. Thomson Reuters, “Israel Must Take Steps to Prevent Genocide in Gaza UN Court Says in Ruling on Temporary Measures,” the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), January 26, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. John Locke, “The Second Treatise of Government: An Essay Concerning the True, Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government,” in The Selected Political Writings of John Locke, Paul Sigmund, ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2005): 17-125, sec. 13, p. 22.
4. Thomson Reuters, “Israel Must Take Steps to Prevent Genocide in Gaza UN Court Says in Ruling on Temporary Measures,” the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), January 26, 2024.
5. Brad Dress, “Netanyahu Casts Off Genocide Case, Vows to Push Ahead Against Hamas,” The Hill, January 26, 2024.
6. Ibid.
7. Najib Jobain and Josef Federman, “Israel Seeks to Evacuate Palestinians Jammed into a Southern Gaza City Ahead of an Expected Invasion,” The Associated Press, February 9, 2024.
8. John Gambrell and Phil Holm, “From 200K to 1.5M People: Startling Images Show the Ongoing War’s Impact to This Small Area in Gaza,” The Associated Press, February 8, 2024.
9. Julia Frankel, “Israel Is Holding Up Food for 1.1 Million Palestinians in Gaza, the Main UN Aid Agency There Says,” The Associated Press, February 9, 2024.
10. Mike Corder and Julia Frankel, “Top U.N. Court to Hold Hearings on Legality of Israeli Occupation,” The Associated Press, February 18, 2024.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.