They Wrote the Rules Then Burned the Book

Truth tellers rot in prison while war criminals get photo ops...

The global justice system was built to prevent horrors like genocide—yet today, it’s doing PR for the very states committing them. Israel flattens homes, bombs hospitals, and starves civilians in Gaza, and what do the so-called international courts do? Delay, deflect, or look away. The laws meant to protect the powerless are now twisted to shield the powerful.

In another very frank interview on Neutrality Studies, international law veteran Dr. Dr. Alfred de Zayas lays it all out: we’re dealing with a hijacked system from the start. The International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s human rights machinery—they all still exist, but they’ve been gutted, stripped of integrity, and repurposed as tools for Western foreign policy. The Genocide Convention? Nice words, until Israel drops bombs on Gaza. Geneva Conventions? Great theory, unless the U.S. or its friends are the ones violating them.

De Zayas doesn’t mince his words (why would any one in this situation, really?). What Israel is doing is genocide, plain and simple. Hospitals destroyed, families erased, aid blocked, aid workers executed—medical workers and over 200 journalists, too—children bombed. The list of most horrific warcrimes and crimes against humanity extends almost infinitely. And yet, the so-called guardians of international law, the very institutions built to prevent “never again”, have done nothing. Worse, they’re part of the problem. Instead of acting, they stall, distract, and deny.

When the West Funds the Bombs and Censors the Truth

You won’t hear this on CNN or read it in The New York Times. Why? Because the same powers committing and enabling these crimes control the media narrative. It’s why UN experts like Francesca Albanese are smeared as “anti-Semitic” the moment she speaks up. It’s why no one in Brussels, Berlin, or Washington dares call Israel’s campaign what it is: a state-led effort to erase Palestinians from their land.

And it's not just Palestine. The West’s war on truth spans borders—and victims.

Take Julian Assange, for instance. For over a decade, he has been subjected to a relentless campaign of legal warfare (or “lawfare”) for the crime of exposing war crimes. Not committing them, exposing them. The US, UK, and even Sweden took turns destroying his life: fabricated charges, psychological torture, years of exile and imprisonment. All to send one message: if you expose our violence, we’ll break you.

Or look at Jorge Glas, former vice president of Ecuador. His “crime” was being on the wrong side of a political shift. When the right-wing regime took power, Glas didn’t flee. He stayed, and was hit with a barrage of legal accusations and stripped of his rights. The UN? Silent. The international press? Largely uninterested. Because he wasn’t convenient to defend.

These aren’t glitches in the system. They are the system. A system where justice only applies when it serves empire, and truth-tellers are hunted while war criminals are wined and dined—just look at the West’s treatment of the Al-Qaida leaders, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani who, as soon as he became a convenient asset, was granted complete amnesty from all previous crimes and is now the West’s respected “president” of Syria. Even the UN Security Council still lists him as a sanctioned criminal. But the West now loves him. Wow, just wow. Meanwhile, those who resist—like Gaza’s population—are vilified. The right to resist occupation, enshrined in international law, is conveniently erased when the occupier is Israel and the victims are Palestinian.

And what about justice? South Africa puts forward a meticulous genocide case at the ICJ. So what does the court do? It gives Israel until January 2026 to respond. That’s nearly two more years of slaughter after the original case was filed. People are dying now. But international law moves on Western time and Western interests.

Cracks, Lies, and the Smell of Decay

This is bigger than Israel. It’s about what the West has done to the very idea of justice. Once upon a time, the UN its courts promised a fairer world. Now, the West has turned them into PR machines. Empty chambers. Fancy buildings full of silence.

Western elites have mastered the art of pretending. Pretending they care about human rights, democracy, peace. But their actions say otherwise: weapons over welfare, occupation over negotiation, power over people. Genocide, when done by allies, is just “self-defence.” Bombs dropped from US-made planes are “precision strikes.” And anyone who questions this is “naive”, “dangerous,” or an “anti-semite”.

But the cracks are showing. Countries are watching. They see who’s bombing hospitals and who’s building roads. They see who silences dissent and who still dares to speak the truth. The myth of the West as a beacon of justice is burning out, fast.

Peace Is the Real Threat to Empire

Of course we all know that peace is bad for business. It threatens arms sales, weakens propaganda, and gives people the dangerous idea that another world is possible. That’s why they fear it. That’s why they smear it. And that’s why they need us to forget what justice was ever supposed to mean.

The crimes are loud. The silence is deafening. The post-war promises of peace and stability are in free fall, gutted by the same powers that once paraded them. The same promise they sold us after Hiroshima, after Auschwitz, after the Nakba. If we let them rewrite the rules again, we’re not just letting genocide happen, we’re helping it win. And that’s one crime we can still choose not to commit. This time, we can’t be content with “never again.” We must create the global judicial infrastructure to make sure it’s “never again to anyone.”