The UN Condemns War Crimes — Then Lets Them Happen

 Without enforcement, international law is a hollow promise. It’s time the UN and ICC stopped pretending and started acting.

By Sean Ash 

I’ve been thinking a lot about international law, and I’ve come to a difficult but honest conclusion. Right now, it’s a useless mechanism. Not by design, but in practice. It was meant to protect nations from chaos, to hold the powerful accountable, to create a rulebook that applies to everyone. But instead, it has become a hollow promise. A polite suggestion. A courtroom with no judge, no bailiff, and no one to stop a thief when they walk through the door.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, when it rolled into Afghanistan before the Americans ever got there, it did so while claiming the language of law and defence. When the United States bombed targets in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, or talks about destabilising Iran over uranium enrichment, it does so not with open guilt, but with righteous justification. Every violation of law is dressed as its protection. These are nations acting with impunity, cloaked in the theatre of legality, but they are not obeying international law. They are breaking it. And the United Nations lets them.

What is the purpose of the UN if it cannot stop illegal wars, cannot prevent ethnic cleansing, cannot protect the civilians it was built to defend? What is the purpose of a law if it is never enforced? It is not enough to write rules on paper and hope the powerful obey. Hope is not law. A body that exists only to issue statements and resolutions is not a shield for the innocent. It is a bystander with a clipboard.

The same applies to the International Criminal Court. It was created to hold individuals accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. It can issue arrest warrants. It can declare someone a criminal on a global stage. But it cannot arrest them. It has no police force. It depends entirely on the willingness of countries to act on its behalf. And when those countries refuse, which they often do, the court becomes nothing more than a courtroom without walls. If justice cannot reach those it convicts, what exactly is its function? A warrant without enforcement is not justice. It is theatre.

Some might argue that the United Nations already has peacekeepers and police. But these forces are not built for justice. UN Peacekeepers, the Blue Helmets, are drawn from member states and deployed only with the consent of host countries. They carry weapons, but under strict conditions. They are not mandated to enforce international law. They cannot arrest heads of state or act on court rulings. Their role is to observe, stabilise, and protect civilians during or after conflict, not to bring war criminals to justice. UN Police, too, exist, but they focus on training and reforming domestic police forces. They cannot enter a sovereign nation independently or enforce rulings from The Hague. In short, there is no UN force today with the legal authority or operational mandate to enforce international law when the powerful break it. That gap is exactly what allows impunity to thrive.

This is why the United Nations must now establish its own independent police force. Not a military. Not a coalition of national armies. A dedicated international law enforcement agency with the power to act on behalf of the global community. When the International Court of Justice rules, this police force should carry out its decision. When the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant, this force should be the one to make the arrest. No more relying on states who pick and choose when to comply. No more waiting for political will while civilians die. This is not a matter of war. It is a matter of justice. And justice without enforcement is not justice at all.

If international law is to mean anything, the UN must transform. It needs more than a security council locked in stalemates and a veto that protects the most violent. It needs a global civil service. It needs its own internal force, not an army of conquest, but a body with the authority to enter countries, walk into parliaments, arrest war criminals, and detain leaders who break international law. This force must be recognised not as an invading presence, but as the arm of global justice. Nations should be bound to honour its authority, and any resistance against it should be seen as resistance against the world itself. Because when a country stands in the way of justice, it is not defending sovereignty. It is defending impunity.

And that is why I say that this civil force must give up their passports. They must denounce their nationality and become citizens of the world in order to carry this out. Because we cannot have bias. We cannot have spies. We cannot have anyone within this force working to serve their own national interests or quietly corrupt the machinery of world justice. Their allegiance must be to the law, not to any land, flag, or faction.

Countries should still govern themselves. They should manage their own economies, culture, laws, and identity. Sovereignty must exist. But when we speak of international law, we are speaking of what happens across borders, across boundaries, where one state affects another. And in those moments, it cannot be any one country that decides when to act. It must be a global response, led by a neutral, disciplined, and accountable civil body. That body should have nothing to do with local economies or domestic laws. Its only purpose is to respond when national law crosses into international harm. When war, exploitation, or environmental destruction reaches beyond borders. That is when this force must rise. Because it is the United Nations, not any single power, that is meant to enforce equality and justice between nations.

This would not be a rogue military or a foreign occupation. It would be a civil body bound to a democratic international parliament. A parliament where nations vote, not where they dictate. A civil force that is international in duty but guided by law, not ideology. Those who serve in it should not represent nations. They should represent humanity. They should carry the authority of law itself. And they should be bound by that same law, held to the highest standard. Any abuse of that power should be considered among the greatest crimes.

As it stands now, we live in a world where the strong do as they wish and the weak are told to wait for peace. The United Nations was created after the worst war humanity had ever seen. It was supposed to be a promise that we would never again let ideology, power, or prejudice destroy generations. But what are we seeing today? Gaza reduced to rubble. Civilians burned and buried. Israeli hostages. Palestinian dead. Hezbollah on one side. Airstrikes on the other. Iran lurking behind. The entire region a matchbox and every state holding a lighter.

And where is the United Nations? Hosting press conferences. Condemning violence. Asking for restraint. They say this is the law, and then they allow states to fight over it. What is the point of law if everyone is allowed to enforce it for themselves? You do not stop a crime by giving everyone a gun and telling them to sort it out.

International law is not meant to be interpreted by bombs. If the United Nations truly believed in its own rules, it would enforce them. It would have stopped settlements being built where they were declared illegal. It would have intervened when countries used chemical weapons. It would have held not just the weak but the powerful to account. But it didn’t. And it still doesn’t.

Some say the European Union stands apart, and in some ways that is true. Within its borders, there is more cooperation, more mutual respect for legal frameworks. But even there, cracks are visible. Nationalism is rising. Trust is thinning. And outside of Europe, who truly respects international law? Which country acts as if it is bound by it when the stakes are high? The answer is few. The answer is not enough.

What we need is not just better diplomacy. We need an entirely new understanding of authority. We need to build a body that is not national, but global. Not a servant of the powerful, but a guardian of the powerless. A United Nations that is more than a logo and a vote. One that exists in the real world, with real reach, real discipline, and real teeth.

And I think the world has had enough of living in fear. Enough of waking each day not knowing whether Putin or America will drop the next nuclear weapon. Enough of wondering who will be invaded next, who will be turned to rubble, who will vanish under the weight of silence. The world does not need more destabilisation. It needs stabilising. It needs a structure we can all trust, not because it is perfect, but because it is finally fair. And if that means surrendering a tiny fraction of national sovereignty to protect millions of lives, then it is a price worth paying. Because the alternative is what we have now. A world where justice waits, where the law is quoted but never enforced, and where the next war is always one political excuse away.