Just to be clear, this article is not about Israel and the settlements. I do have strong opinions about about both subjects, but that discussion is for another time.

This morning I was reading this article on the BBC News site. In it I found this statement:

"About 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. "

Under normal circumstances, when something is against the law, such as stealing or crossing the road when the pedestrian light is red in Germany, it is totally clear that it is illegal. If the matter is not clear, then a court can decide.

The statement that Israel disputes that the settlements are illegal highlights a basic issue with so-called international law: that basically there is no such thing. Wikipedia has a page about international law (here) which states that "International law is consent-based governance", and therein lies the problem. There are, of course, exceptions: some international law has teeth, with a system of courts and enforcement, but mostly international law is enforced only in cases where the nations concerned choose to comply.

To illustrate the problem, one only needs to look at a few recent cases (there are many many more, but these four should make the point):

• The recent smog crisis in Singapore and Malaysia, caused by forest clearance fires in Indonesia. The affected nations do not seem to have any legal recourse.
• The horrific war crimes committed in the Balkans war. Although individual criminals have been captured and brought to trial in Den Haag, this has largely been achieved without support from nations such as Serbia, and no legal penalties against nations (as far as I know) have been implemented, only against individuals.
• The notorious Prism spying programme operated by the US NSA, which seems to be in breach of the law in most European nations. There is frantic diplomatic activity, but no international legal action because there is no legal framework for such action.
• The continuing whaling activity by the Japanese whaling fleet. The world seems to agree that it is wrong, for a variety of reasons, but it continues, mainly because there is no legal system for declaring it illegal and enforcing such a declaration.

Of course, there is the United Nations. They can decide to declare something illegal (on a case-by-case basis), and to authorise action, but any permanent member of the Security Council can veto such a motion, and such vetoes happen often (the crisis in Syria is a good example). Even if the UN manages to pass a motion, there needs to be some nation prepared to enforce the motion (such as when the USA invaded/liberated Iraq); if no-one is prepared to act as policemen (or vigilante), then nothing will happen.

Nations which do not play by the rules, such as North Korea, are often branded as "rogue states". Based on the widespread habit of ignoring and manipulating international law, it could be argued that almost all nations should be labelled as rogue states. Two criteria are often quoted as measures of the quality of nations: democracy, and the rule of law. Isn't it time that the leading nations of the world started to lead by example, and took the concept of the rule of law more seriously?