Student Voices: Politics and Power in International Law

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Scott Lee

Good evening everyone, so welcome to our student voices event. This is a by students for students event series that provides space for students to engage with experts, and one another on various issues spanning across the international relations. This event is organized by the Burkle Center Interns in Parternship with the UCLA Undergraduate Journal for International Law, otherwise known UJIL. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to introduce the Burkle Center interns.

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Multiple Speakers

I am Scott, I am a third year here at UCLA, and I'm studying political science. Hi everyone, I'm Akshara Chitturi. I'm a fourth year political science major. Hi guys. My name is Rida I'm 4th political science major. Hi everyone. I'm Reya and I'm a fourth year international development Studies major. Hi everyone my name is Grace.

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Multiple Speakers

I'm a fourth year political science and global cities double major. My name is Lucas and I'm a fourth year political science major. So tonight, the panelists will take part in a discussion moderated by our interns, after which we will open the floor to questions from the audience. The formal program will conclude at 715. But students are welcome and encouraged to stay and speak with the panelists individually.

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Scott Lee

So just to start off the event. In an era marked and tested by globalization, rapid geopolitical shifts, contested legal norms and other rising challenges to what we once considered a stable, rule based international order. Understanding who shapes international law and who gets to bend or transgress rules with minimum accountability has never been more critical. Today's event: Politics and Power in International Law Center students and scholars in a conversation that goes to the heart of these issues if power determines law.

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Multiple Speakers

What does that mean for the rules based international order across the world today, international law is being tested on multiple fronts, from disputes over territorial integrity and human rights violations, to questions about accountability for war crimes and enforcement of trade, climate and/or humanitarian law, powerful hedgemons and corporations often influence not just participate in the legal frameworks meant to govern them.

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Akshara Chitturi

Today's headlines underscore how urgent these questions are and have become from the ongoing crisis in Sudan and Palestine to mass crackdowns on protests in Iran to the US military operation in Venezuela. It highlights how international law can be contested and reshaped or bypassed by powerful actors advancing their own strategic interests, raising critical questions about fairness, responsibility and the rule of law on the global stage.

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Akshara Chitturi

This event brings about abstract debate into deeper focus by asking not just what the rules are, but where the authority of international law lies and who gets to write and enforce these norms. Confronting one of the central dilemmas of our time. Is international law truly a neutral framework for joint interest and cooperation, or does it codify the interests of the powerful while sidelining less developed or underrepresented nations?

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Akshara Chitturi

By engaging with us today who are contributing to the ongoing effort to reimagine justice, strengthen global stability, and shape the future of international cooperation. The perspectives shared here will help illuminate how the next generation of global leaders understand, challenge, and respond to evolving challenges in the world. Order. Before we begin introducing our esteemed panelists for today, we would like to note that unfortunately, Professor David Kim, one of our scheduled panelists, was unable to join us this evening due to unforeseen circumstances.

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Akshara Chitturi

However, he has shared thoughtful remarks in advance, and we will be sure to incorporate these insights into our discussion during the Q&A portion of the program. With that being said, our first panelist, Aniq Chunara is a JD candidate at the UCLA School of Law and a Latham and Watkins Business Law Scholar for the class of 2026.

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Akshara Chitturi

Our second panelist, Katerina Onyshchencko is an LLM candidate at the UCLA School of Law with experience in international legal and policy settings.

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Akshara Chitturi

Our third panelist, John Dover, is a JD candidate and achievement Fellow at the UCLA School of Law.

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Akshara Chitturi

And our final panelist, Amber Grimmer, is a JD candidate at the UCLA school of law specializing in business law and policy in international and comparative law.

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Multiple Speakers

Thank you. Everyone will now be moving on to our next discussion panel of the event. thank you, Akshara and Scott, for the wonderful introduction. Reya and I will be moderating this part of the panel.

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Multiple Speakers

So before we begin, could each of our panelists please tell us a little bit about your experience and interest in the field of international law? I can start, however, you know. You all right? I'll start then. So my experience coming to UCLA, during my high school, I did International Baccalaureate, and my first like experience in international law was actually in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Aniq Chunnara

I got to work at Weinberg Legal Clinic. Over one of my summers in high school, and it was helping, like, refugees that were coming in from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and helping get their kids into schools, that were under the age of 13. And then in addition to that, coming to law school after undergrad, I really got to expand my experience.

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Aniq Chunnara

And my first summer, I got to split my summer and half of it I spent in Pakistan at the Supreme Court in Pakistan. And, while I was there, I clerked for one of the judges for about two and a half, three months. And that was a whole different experience that really allowed me to compare international law, in Pakistan versus like in the United States.

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Aniq Chunnara

And then also in addition, I spent semester in The Hague at the International Court of Justice. And you got to work in the registry there and also do research for some of the judges there as well, over like a 5 or 6 month period. And that really solidified a lot of the newer experiences of what, how westernized international law has become in some ways, and also seeing the positives and negatives.

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Aniq Chunnara

And what are some of the the places that need to be worked on in the coming years? So that's a little bit of my experience in.

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Kateryn Onyshchenko

So, I'm from Ukraine and I started to do my bachelor's degree in law because structures were different in Ukraine. You can go to law school right after your high school. So I was doing my bachelor and the like I had this opportunity to do one semester abroad, and I studied at the University of Turin for half a year, and I only took international law classes in this university and really liked international law in this period of time.

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Kateryn Onyshchenko

So after graduating from a bachelor degree in national Ukrainian law, I started my Masters in International Law. And when I was studying in my first year before the Ukraine invasion started, my studies was often interrupted. I left Ukraine for half a year. Then I became a research scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. I was conducting, a lot of research.

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Kateryn Onyshchenko

Was there in particular on the children's rights and, in armed conflicts. Then I returned to Ukraine and I started to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because I thought that this is something that I would like to do. The place, I worked at the Minister of Foreign Affairs for two years. I was advising on, Ukraine's participation in the UN.

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Kateryn Onyshchenko

I was conducting really, different research for some different topics related to international humanitarian law and international criminal law. In general, how to position you like, how to form Ukraine's position. And I also advised Ukraine's agent, to the International Court of Justice and in this, and this work, we cooperative was, legal advisors from the US, and I really enjoyed working with them as well.

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Kateryn Onyshchenko

That's why I decided to apply to the U.S to to do my masters in law. So this is my path in international law.

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John Dover

Hi everyone. So in undergrad I studied history and predominantly related to the Americas and specifically to Argentina. And Argentina has had a very complex relationship with international law and particularly international human rights law. So that was kind of the catalyst for a lot of my interest in international law. But, when I originally came to law school, I thought, I want to do environmental law, and that's where most of my interests lie.

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John Dover

And, I had a lot of experience in local governments. So on the very micro level of international of, environmental law. But when I got to law school, as I continue pursuing, environmental law, I had the opportunity become a research assistant for the Institute for Human Rights in Europe. And that was doing mainly environmental criminal law.

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John Dover

In the context of international law. And so that was kind of the merging of these two worlds for me. And it's been, something of, you know, burgeoning interest ever since. I, through my work in the, Promise Institute, I've done, a good amount of research, particularly relating to, the criminalization of large scale international environmental crimes, particularly through the addition of a fifth crime to the Rome Statute, known as ecocide.

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John Dover

Additionally to that, I have done some background research for a couple of submissions to the ICJ, as well as to the African Court for Human and People's Rights. And then, similar to Aniq and Amber, I also spent my last semester in The Hague, and I worked, in the deputy registrar's office, as an intern at the International Court, justice.

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Amber Grimmer

Hello, everyone. My name is Amber Grimmer. I've been involved in international law since undergrad. Where, I majored in peace studies, and I did research, on, within expert witness on asylum cases. And I also went to Poland to study international law and the Holocaust, which ended up being very useful for my, work in, cases on the Rwandan genocide.

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Amber Grimmer

I did my master's in foreign service at Georgetown, where I focused on refugees, migration and humanitarian emergencies. I interned at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, which is a, you know, organization. And one of the main campaigns I worked on was U.S. Hands Off Haiti, essentially, trying to get the U.S. State Department to be less involved in reformulating the democracy in Haiti, which is a little ironic, because the next year, I, began working at the U.S. State Department, for two years, I was an advisor to the judicial liaison who oversees the relationship between the State Department and the Supreme Court.

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Amber Grimmer

So I had the opportunity to give my opinion on how, like the Supreme Court justices can, can handle some international law issues. I also worked in the office of, EU and European Affairs. And as John mentioned, the last semester I was at the residual mechanism for criminal tribunals, which is mandated by the UN to perform the the functions of the former international criminal tribunals for the war crimes that occurred in the former Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide.

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Rida Abbas

That's a thank you very fact. Thank you so much for this wonderful introduction. And as you can see, we have a very talented and fantastic. So I'm going to begin the questions now. So many conversations about international law today seem to be animated by a sense of frustration when, for example, selective enforcements lack of accountability, the apparent gap between legal principles and political realities.

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Rida Abbas

Which leads us to my first question, which is, do you think the international legal order simply is just simply failing, or is it functioning exactly as designed by global political dynamics? And for you to answer, in whichever order you guys feel is best

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Amber Grimmer

So my short answer to this question is that the international legal order was designed to be selectively accountable, for better or worse, probably mostly for worse. But in addition to that, there's been, a breakdown where even even these built in, with these built in asymmetries, people are really taking advantage and exploiting those asymmetries.

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Amber Grimmer

I'm going to use the examples from my own experience. So as I mentioned, I was at the residual mechanism for criminal tribunals. A little history on that is, it emerged from the ICTY and ICTR, as I mentioned, that the courts for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and this was supported by, the US, it, it was managed by the UN Security Council, for which the US is a permanent member.

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Amber Grimmer

However, in contrast, the United States never signed on to the Rome Statute, so it's not part of the International Criminal Court, the ICC. I think that demonstrates this selective accountability. I'm just because it shows that it's, almost implicitly that, it's okay to have, you know, criminal accountability. So I think those other people, those countries who don't have veto power at the UN, however, we don't want international criminal accountability for ourselves, even going so far as saying, do you like the Hague Invasion Act?

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Amber Grimmer

That if if we are ever, like, indicted or arrested by the ICC, we would like invade The Hague? So that's an example of the, selectivity. And I think, I think this has made almost all the difference in like the current conflicts we're seeing today, because I think if the U.S had supported, the ICC, maybe that would be a more efficient, mechanism for, prosecuting like the state actors who are involved with many complex.

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John Dover

Yeah, I think it's a tough question. I, I think on some level it requires you to ask first what is the international legal order. And I don't think it's as simple as saying it's one thing. I mean, it's a system of treaties. It's, arbitration tribunals. It's, criminal tribunals. It's, the UN and its different frameworks. And then, all of the things that comprise the UN framework.

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John Dover

So, I think present in the media today, it's very obvious that there's a lot of very high profile examples of things operating counterintuitive to what we have traditionally like to imagine as the international world order. That being said, I think often in these certain like discussions, we tend to have a rosy view on how even the international world order has operated historically.

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John Dover

I think historically, a lot of large countries, have been impervious, largely through design, through the mechanisms which may bind smaller countries to, certain legal frameworks. And I think within this you have to kind of take a step back and ask yourself the more fundamental questions of what is the goal of the international, legal order?

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John Dover

Is it to simply stop, wars to large scale wars through countries? Is it to ensure human rights is rigorously enforced at whatever costs? And I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that question, but I would say I think that it's much more apparent the ways in which international law is fraying. And I think a lot of large countries are less interested in playing the sort of theater of following these rules there.

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John Dover

There's a little bit more of a saying in the quiet part out loud. But I wouldn't necessarily frame what's going on currently as an aberration to historical trends and actions, which countries have always taken. And, I think that's somewhat of a cynical take in how historically the international legal order has operated, but I think is somewhat of a hopeful take in some sense, because it also says that we're not in necessarily completely uncharted territory, and that there's not a way back or a way to continue forward, to keep on working on this project, which at least that I personally think is worthwhile.

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Kateryna Onyshchenko

Actually, we're going to have an involvement in the Promise Institute on this program international when we go, orders. So if you're interested in, maybe you can still sign up for it. I would recommend it to you. I also want to say that all my opinions on my own and do not represent the official position of the Ukrainian government.

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Kateryna Onyshchenko

So generally speaking, I think that we definitely see some shifts in balance and in dynamic in the world. I would say that, there is a growing tensions between countries that support multilateralism and those who are, stand for transactionalism. also, I can say that, there was a balance of power in the world order, and it's shifting towards south and east.

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Kateryna Onyshchenko

But generally speaking, I think that all the UN countries do not have, agreements on every, every NGO, like every convention or everything. We just need to have, general understanding of the fundamentals. And I think those fundamentals are principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, respect for human rights. And I think that even though some powerful countries are violating some of those principles, fundamentally the majority of states are still respecting them.

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Kateryna Onyshchenko

So, I mean, I cannot say that there is some the international order does not exist anymore. Some states try to violating that for the majority. So the priority to have this order.

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Aniq Chunnara

I guess my answer to this starts a little bit, in history. And if you want to look at international law in its entirety, you kind of just start where international law really took its roots and became a robust, actual written down law. And that's kind of after 1945. And at that time, the role of international law was to stop great powers from going to war with each other.

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Aniq Chunnara

Right. Coming out of World War Two, that is where the current legal order for international law was designed to do. And so when you keep that in mind, it's not international law wasn't developed in its infancy to protect, and make sure that there is state accountability. It was more so to prevent large countries from going to war with each other.

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Aniq Chunnara

And then the other aspect of it, the part of this legal order that people kind of forget or don't see is often is the political and economic side of the legal order. And so in if you actually were to read, international law treaties, treatises law between countries, you'd see that is extremely robust. It is extremely well written.

00;20;44;27 - 00;21;09;25

Aniq Chunnara

But the issue then becomes in making sure that you can actually protect and like, go after perpetrators of international law. And that's the weakness that we have really. And that stems from the political and economic side. Right. So we have these paradoxes almost where countries are they've reorganized the powerful countries and reorganized power. And I'll use an example here that's actually pretty modern.

00;21;09;25 - 00;21;31;26

Aniq Chunnara

We can look at Syria, and Syria was referred to by the U.N. Security Council to be looked at by the ICC multiple times. But each time Syria was referred to become a case for the ICC to look into you had U.N. Security Council members, members of the permanent five, Russia and China specifically that vetoed the ICC going into Syria.

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Aniq Chunnara

And so you have these institutional powers, the US being one of them, that just absolutely have a stronghold on who actually gets punished when they, you know, break international law and who gets to ride free. And so in the case of Syria, what ended up happening is you had blocks of humanitarian aid, you weren't allowed to there was no allowance of U.N. organizations to come in and provide support to civilians on the ground.

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Aniq Chunnara

So at the end of the day, what really happens because of the legal order that's in place is that people get hurt. And that's the biggest they'll always be the biggest challenge of international law is because it's the challenge between countries that want to protect their autonomy, and individuals that need protection. Right. And international law and the legal order that we spoke about earlier, its foundation was in protecting country sovereignty.

00;22;26;22 - 00;22;48;26

Aniq Chunnara

It was not in protecting protection of human rights, or individual protections. So that is the large debate. And that is where hopefully people on this panel, people in this room, as time moves on, we can shift international law to being a of of to be a more robust, to be a more robust protection for individuals versus just the sovereignty of states.

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Aniq Chunnara

So that's.

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Reya Hadaya

Our next question is on the issue of accountability. So over the past few decades, international institutions have been given greater authority to hold states and individuals accountable for mass violence and human rights abuses. These mechanisms can range anywhere from military intervention and economic sanctions to maintaining and inter core complementarity. Shared by scholar Katherine Sikkink's famously has described this development as a justice cascade.

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Reya Hadaya

So our question is how does this justice cascade effectively constrain state violence, or has it simply changed how states manage their exposure to accountability? Through service? This John take up.

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John Dover

So let me make sure I get the question right there. The question is how, would we character has, the justice cascade effectively constrained, like the proliferation of some sort of violence in the world? I mean, I would I would say no, because, I mean, you have large scale conflicts in, for example, in Ukraine and Russia.

00;24;15;06 - 00;24;38;13

John Dover

And then, I mean, look at the United States's, invasion of Venezuela. I, I haven't read the paper. So, I mean, I don't know if I can effectively critique whether or not I would characterize what's occurred in the last 20 years is that, Justice Cascade was that term, because, I mean, if you look at human and criminal, mechanisms such as the ICC, you're only subject to it if you agree to it.

00;24;38;16 - 00;24;59;24

John Dover

You only are subject to the, the rules thereof from the date that you've signed it. And then even if you sign it, it's only, applicable within your territory and for people under your jurisdiction. And then additionally, if you look at, say, for example, the Human Rights Council, largely most of the power there is symbolic.

00;24;59;24 - 00;25;31;18

John Dover

It is sending letters, it is bringing things to light. Not that that doesn't have an incredible impact, but, there the underlining, most of, if not all of the, international law and its power to, actually enforce, say, through some sort of arm mechanism would be the UN security Council. And, even then, I think we don't have a lot of faith and say, for example, the Israel-Palestine conflict, that the UN security Council would never do anything in that context due to veto measures.

00;25;31;21 - 00;25;46;26

John Dover

And there's a lot of opinions there on whether or not that's a good thing. I mean, does to some regard, maybe it's a good thing to have a veto measure so that, you know, there's not a giant war between the United States and China or Russia and that really you're trying to avoid these massive powers going to war, and you really are willing to sacrifice low level conflicts.

00;25;46;29 - 00;26;29;14

John Dover

I'm not saying I agree with that. But I think that current, situations have revealed the extent to which this, the structure is largely symbolic is largely can be largely theater. But that's not to say that it doesn't have power, and it isn't slowly moving the needle positively. I think that's why there's a lot of, disheartened when the United States backed out of, doing the Universal Periodic Review, at the UN, which would have large which largely gives, the UN Human Rights Council the ability to, kind of audit the, occurrences within a country and its actions.

00;26;29;16 - 00;26;54;05

John Dover

So I think to a large extent it hasn't been entirely effective because I think that there is no rigorous enforcement mechanism beyond the U.N. Security Council. And the U.N. Security Council is directly designed to not allow it to be enforced against its five permanent members. But that being said, I this isn't to say that I think that these mechanisms in themselves have no effect.

00;26;54;05 - 00;27;11;16

John Dover

I think they do move the needle. I think they move the needle in very powerful ways. But I just don't think they align with our traditional notions of what it means to have a rigorous legal system, which is top down and has enforcement from, some sort of.

00;27;11;18 - 00;27;22;01

John Dover

Prison or, military invading, you know, but, I'm sure the people may have different opinions on this.

00;27;22;04 - 00;27;27;21

Kateryna Onyshchenko

I can

00;27;27;24 - 00;28;12;28

Kateryna Onyshchenko

You know, we can speak about state accountability and we can talk about, individual accountability. So please talk about individuals. There is a question. There is always a question of immunities because, in high ranking officials are having personal immunity, so they cannot be prosecuted in, foreign jurisdiction while they're still in office. There is also a functional immunity which protects states, individuals, from prosecution for any acts that they were committing for in their official capacity.

00;28;13;00 - 00;28;42;12

Kateryna Onyshchenko

But we also have international for International Criminal Court, when like where those individuals have no immunities. But the problem, like the problem that Ukraine had was International Criminal Court in that it doesn't have it doesn't have jurisdiction to prosecute crime of aggression. That's why Ukraine had to establish a special tribunal for the crime of aggression And essentially was one of the tasks.

00;28;42;12 - 00;29;13;21

Kateryna Onyshchenko

And I've been working with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and I would say that it was a long path because we had some obstacles on each stack. I would say it wouldn't. It would be ideal we to go to the International Criminal Court and, and, prosecute those who are responsible for this crime there. But International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction that we could have gone to the Security Council, and they can ask International Criminal Court to prosecute them.

00;29;13;21 - 00;29;41;23

Kateryna Onyshchenko

But in the Security Council there are veto rights. So we also cannot do that. We could also consider to go to the General Assembly and had a General Assembly resolution about transferring into the International Criminal Court, but we thought that we might not have the support that we need for that. That's why Ukraine decided to do it on the basis of the, Council of Europe.

00;29;41;26 - 00;30;11;17

Kateryna Onyshchenko

I would say that in general, speaking of accountability, there are very different methods, like how you can reach accountability. You just have to probably work a little bit longer and harder than you would like it to be, but it's something that cannot be changed. This international law, I think, because we're dealing with sovereigns and we cannot like, enforce some decisions on them.

00;30;11;20 - 00;30;17;27

Kateryna Onyshchenko

And something that we have to deal with is.

00;30;17;29 - 00;30;36;09

Aniq Chunnara

So in answering a little bit of if there's been like this cascading effect in international law over the past 20 years, I do think there has been, and I'm going to stick by us, because, you know, I said earlier, there's like the states side of it and there's the individual side, and I'm going to stick a little bit to the individual side here.

00;30;36;09 - 00;30;58;11

Aniq Chunnara

And specifically the International Criminal Court. When you look at atrocities or war crimes that have been committed, that would be construed as war crimes within the Rome Statute. You see almost this paradox of codification. And by that, what I'm trying to say is when you list out what a crime is a, b, c, d, e, and this is the things that you need to check mark for it to be a crime.

00;30;58;11 - 00;31;18;17

Aniq Chunnara

And if it's not marked off, then this isn't a crime. You almost now give institutional abuse states and institutions a playbook to say okay, this is the end goal that we would like here in Sudan. This is the end goal we would like here in Gaza and the Uyghurs in China, or whichever crime you want to look at.

00;31;18;20 - 00;31;51;19

Aniq Chunnara

And now, how can we balance on this type of accomplishing our goal of systematically removing a group of people in any of these circumstances, and at the same time not implicate ourselves in a crime when it's written down the way it's written down. Right? So there's almost this issue now, when you have a structure like the International Criminal Court, where they've given the rules out and countries are not going to play so much to the line that they just don't cross the boundary into it becoming a crime.

00;31;51;22 - 00;32;23;14

Aniq Chunnara

But at the same time, they're basically achieving their goal or their malicious goal and their intent. At the end of the day, and you can see this across the world and you, I mean, you can see it all the way that the Rome Statute came in. I mean, it's the early 2000, 2000, 2004, and since then we have had issues in Sudan, the Uighurs, in Syria, if you look at Gaza, where all of the perpetrators of war crimes in these places have basically went to the limits of what they can do, and maybe 1 or 2 of those boxes have not been checked.

00;32;23;17 - 00;32;43;12

Aniq Chunnara

And at the same time, the other issue that this becomes is that you have states that would have in the past, traditionally stood up for the human rights of people in these places. But now what happens when you have a court that you can just point at and say they're responsible for handling this? Why should I, as a country of the United Kingdom, why should I France?

00;32;43;12 - 00;33;07;05

Aniq Chunnara

Why should I stop, sign? Why should I, as the U.S., get involved in protecting these people's rights when there's a court and there's a structure for it? But the problem then becomes the court and structure that's in place has no enforcement mechanisms or has very weak enforcement mechanisms. So now you have pushed off this problem to a mechanism that can't really do its jobs at the highest level because of sovereignty issues between states.

00;33;07;08 - 00;33;39;27

Aniq Chunnara

And the other issue of complementarity comes into play because states will. And if for those who don't know what complementarity necessarily entails, it means that states or states that the crime is committed didn't get the chance to get to chance to adjudicate that crime domestically before an international court gets the opportunity to do so. Sometimes. Now you have situations such as in Darfur, where domestic courts will want to, you know, have their perpetrators, tried in their domestic courts.

00;33;39;27 - 00;33;58;23

Aniq Chunnara

But at that same time, you run into the issues of corruption because at the lower level, as well as the international level, corruption is always the case. So how do you actually bring justice to these individuals? And like we said, I think earlier during the first question, like I said, at least the role of international law from the beginning has been to protect the great powers.

00;33;58;23 - 00;34;17;03

Aniq Chunnara

It has been to protect human rights or individuals rights. So over the past 20 years, I think you have seen people get better at playing the game of breaking the rules of international law and getting away with it because the police mechanism, the the enforcement mechanism is so weak, who's going to come after you and actually lock you up?

00;34;17;06 - 00;34;54;00

Multiple Speakers

And I think that's one of the biggest problems that international law does face. Especially now. I'd like to give a, a positive example of, of a justice cascade from my own experience. So, the, the ICTY and the ICTR are two ad hoc criminal tribunals and they predate the ICC, and they deal with, you know, two distinct incidences.

00;34;54;02 - 00;35;37;25

Amber Grimmer

And, and the these international tribunals dealt with, the highest level actors in those respective conflicts and sometimes mid-level actors, but the individual perpetrators, those cases were often dealt with in, in domestic courts and in domestic war crimes courts established in the, the countries of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the the current residual mechanism provides assistance to these courts on how to, prosecute individual perpetrators of war crimes.

00;35;37;25 - 00;36;07;22

Amber Grimmer

So I think that's a positive example. And that makes me think, even though I see the reasons for, having, institution like the ICC, maybe I just said, like, food for thought, maybe an ad hoc criminal tribunal. Maybe that should have been the way forward. I'm not saying that's not my thesis. But that is one consideration.

00;36;07;25 - 00;36;49;01

Amber Grimmer

And then moving forward, thinking about justice cascades, I think, ideally, international accountability for state actors. I would love to see that cascade down into accountability for, for smaller individual perpetrators and for, a positive conception of peace. Positive peace is not just the absence of war. It's the presence of a just society. So, yeah.

00;36;49;01 - 00;36;51;18

Amber Grimmer

Thank you.

00;36;51;20 - 00;37;14;02

Aniq Chunnara

Wait, before the next question, could I add something to and that's also positive on the state side, because you reminded me of something I came up. But even I think Amber, John and I all worked at the ICJ. And one of the greatest things about the international court, yes, if you actually look at it's past, about 85 to 90% of its, adjudications have been followed by the states that have brought cases to the court.

00;37;14;08 - 00;37;37;01

Aniq Chunnara

So there is this huge positive within international law where states have broad courts or have been brought to the court by another state, and at the end of the day followed what the judgments have been. At the same time, you do have a couple of examples of that not being the case, and the biggest one being the United States versus Nicaragua, where the US did not, follow what the the indictment was by the court.

00;37;37;03 - 00;37;50;23

Aniq Chunnara

So that's an example of these larger powers not abiding by it. But you do have this positive of like almost 90% of cases being followed through. And so that's another like, I guess, positive, glimpse in the past.

00;37;50;26 - 00;38;11;22

Rida Abbas

Thank you so much I think that is a good segue into our next question, which is going to be on the, legitimacy of the law. So I suppose that the heart of this discussion, it's a deceptively simple question, which is where does the law get its authority from? And Professor ??? He actually argue that it's not from God.

00;38;11;25 - 00;38;32;10

Rida Abbas

Then from where is a human dignity? Is it property? Is the Constitution's Myths of origins or consent? So in todays semi-secular, pluralistic world, what ultimately legitimizes international law?

00;38;32;12 - 00;39;06;20

Kateryna Onyshchenko

You know, is it's kind of like theoretical question and we can talk about the origins for a long time, but I think if we'll look how like norms are being created, for example, to be talking about convention and the crime against, crimes against humanity, which are very near our being, like we talked about and discussed. And I think that in the nearest 4 or 5 years, we're going to have a convention on crimes.

00;39;06;23 - 00;39;33;13

Kateryna Onyshchenko

I think that states are playing the biggest role now and maybe sometimes, and maybe in the most of the times, civil society students may make you make the first push. But the final decision is usually like from the states Unfortunately.

00;39;33;16 - 00;39;54;26

Aniq Chunnara

I would say that and I actually wrote like, papers were I classes on legitimacy? And I said legitimacy came from four places and the first one being consent, the second one being, consistency, the third one being fairness and the fourth one being outcomes. Right. So with these four, you kind of build the foundation of legitimacy in international law.

00;39;54;29 - 00;40;35;16

Aniq Chunnara

However, the biggest issue then becomes when legitimacy, the legitimacy of international law collapses. When you have selectivity in enforcement. And we see that being the case honestly, historically, but even more now. So. Right. For example, you take the ICC, and you take a situation in Sudan, for example. You have such large players in these proxy wars that are going on, it within Sudan, I believe there's 23 either states or organizations that are involved in as proxies in the war that's going on there in countries like the UAE, the US, Russia, China, and they all have their own individual reasons to be involved.

00;40;35;19 - 00;41;03;01

Aniq Chunnara

But the problem with that then becomes, is that these great powers are powerful enough to stop international legal systems from doing their job because they have the political and economic power in their hand. So, for example, you have Russia, who's their biggest interest in Sudan is gold rush actually moved their financial system back to the gold standard to protect itself from the US devaluing its currency, which the U.S just did in Iran because it removed Iran from the swift goods.

00;41;03;03 - 00;41;26;08

Aniq Chunnara

And so their biggest investment in Sudan is supplying these forces in Sudan with arms, ammunitions in exchange for gold. So now you have one of these large major powers in the world, taking its stance in a proxy war and essentially insinuating more conflicts and disregarding international law and humanitarian law at large. You have mass graves in these situations.

00;41;26;10 - 00;41;48;01

Aniq Chunnara

I mean, in the same way, in the same context. You could look at, you know, the situation in Gaza as well, where there is on paper a genocide going on. And at the same time, places like the United States that have a very strong relationship with the current government in Israel, provide it with backing and support to prevent it from being persecuted for international crimes.

00;41;48;01 - 00;42;10;03

Aniq Chunnara

And the other side of it is the economic and political side of it. Right. You have another country that most people don't even really think about when it comes to this Azerbaijan, they had a big role in committing mass atrocities against the Armenian individuals within the southern parts of the Karabakh. And if you look back at it, the other question that we have to ask here is who finances these crimes?

00;42;10;03 - 00;42;27;29

Aniq Chunnara

At the same time, if you look at the example in Azerbaijan, you have Russia, you have Israel, and you have Turkey, actually, all three of them working together on paper. You would never think these countries are best friends or support each other, but on paper they all support Azerbaijan in what it does in the killings that it has done in the past.

00;42;27;29 - 00;42;48;08

Aniq Chunnara

And this is in 2020. So this is like very recent examples. And so the issue then becomes is when you have legitimacy for countries that are these great powers, and you don't have legitimacy, it goes away when you don't have that consistency with these smaller countries and countries that are abiding by international law that have signed the Rome Statute.

00;42;48;16 - 00;43;10;26

Aniq Chunnara

But now even these smaller countries get protection from the larger players at hand because they all have something to lose or something to gain as well. So I think that is actually the biggest playing field international. And it's like the place that has been eroded the most is the legitimacy of international law. And the US is one of the biggest perpetrators in doing that under the Bush administration, under Trump.

00;43;10;28 - 00;43;33;28

Aniq Chunnara

And it's pulling out of, the, I think, funding for the ICC. This is what erodes the confidence that we as students, that individuals around the world have in international law, protecting their rights. So I think that's one of the biggest questions that we have to continue asking ourselves and continue solving is the question of legitimacy.

00;43;34;01 - 00;44;02;23

Amber Grimmer

So many of you might know, like the famous quote, that history is written by the winners and I would say law is also in some ways written and legitimized by the winners. The clearest example of this would be, after the World Wars, having the UN charter and with the U.N. charter taking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

00;44;02;23 - 00;44;38;14

Amber Grimmer

And a lot of our international laws about human rights are based on these ideals. But one thing I try to remind people to think about is even human rights and international law and norms might not be universal. One, one side that was excluded in the development of universal human rights and international norms were those of indigenous peoples.

00;44;38;17 - 00;45;06;10

Amber Grimmer

There's a very, recent example that reminded me of this. And that is a woman in Greenland. Greenland, she that, you know, they, they, they can't be bought because even in the land they live on, they don't own the land, they own the houses on the land. And that's a traditional indigenous, conception.

00;45;06;10 - 00;45;27;06

Amber Grimmer

And in many cultures, I just want to remind people that there, there are no there may be some, but we can't say that all of the U.N. charter is universal. And, same thing with international law.

00;45;27;09 - 00;46;00;23

John Dover

All right. I'll, I'll, I'll go in a lot of ways. But Katerina said, I think, this is a highly, highly theoretical question. I think historically, the perspective has been that the permission for the UN or any international legal order to exist comes from strictly states. I think this has long been the prevailing notion. However, I think this has recently become increasingly challenged, actually, through the prevalence of more and more, human rights perspectives on international legal order.

00;46;00;25 - 00;46;22;26

John Dover

Particularly because human rights, as you may know, are not conferred to states. They are conferred to individuals for almost every other aspect of, international law is conferred on states. And I think you can ask a lot of questions on why we think people have human rights. And the truth is, I don't know if that question really matters all that much.

00;46;23;01 - 00;46;47;09

John Dover

You can say that it's some divine question and I think a lot of people do look to, religious explanations on why people have certain inalienable rights. Or you could say it's from a certain, ineffable morality that we all share. That gives us this perspective. But I, I think that more often than not, as I said, consent is really the basis for all of us.

00;46;47;11 - 00;47;36;00

John Dover

However, I think that there is an increasingly prevalent notion that there are certain things that go beyond consent. And this is acknowledged with international law through customary norms, through as you jus cogens through, more and more human rights treaties, kind of entering this, customary norm space as opposed to, strictly treaties. But with that said, I think that more often than not, we kind of then do end up back into a enforcement question and how that all shakes out and is very complex and, not always the most, equitable, but, yeah, I'd say more often than not, when it comes down to what actually makes law real, it's consent

00;47;36;03 - 00;48;19;23

Reya Hadaya

So we're moving on to our last question in this portion of the panel. And then afterwards, you guys will be able to ask the panel some of your own questions. So as we look ahead, it is becoming extremely clear that there are no simple solutions to but issues. And tensions we've discussed tonight is international law derives its authority from contingent sources, whether they be political consent, economic structures or shared narratives, and its future will likely depend less formal doctrine and more on how power is distributed and redistributed.

00;48;19;25 - 00;49;05;00

Reya Hadaya

So for our generation, then the challenge may not be how to say save the current rules based order as it exists and operates today, but, on how we decide to engage with it, honestly recognizing its constraints and its possibilities, and asking where and how we can make accountability more real. So considering all of this, what reforms to institutions such as the ICC, ICJ and UN Security Council would be necessary to create a more equitable and credible future for the international legal order?

00;49;05;02 - 00;49;26;27

Aniq Chunnara

I guess I'll start with this one, and I think I'm going to add to that question, because it's not just how can you reform these institutions such as the UN Security Council, WTO, ICC, whichever, but also, how do you change the politics of the countries and states that are involved in these organizations? And that's up to us, right?

00;49;26;27 - 00;49;55;22

Aniq Chunnara

So if you wanted to look at the UNSC you could say, okay, we could change their veto restraints. We can expand or rotate the permanent five members. We can expand, a lot of the work into the General Assembly or with the ICC. You could have more robust strategies, and, you know, more internal ties to geopolitics to make sure they can extract individuals, more fairly and not just rely on, you know, states to extract individuals for them.

00;49;55;25 - 00;50;31;00

Aniq Chunnara

But I think the bigger question then becomes is, how can we, as members of international law, every individual as a part of international law, be more morally and politically consistent in how we operate and make sure that we in our own countries elect officials that respect international law at its core and its foundation. I think the the a lot of the regression that has happened in international law over the past couple of years has come because the individuals in power and a lot of these countries have no regard for international law and do not value it when they're breaking it at any point in time.

00;50;31;02 - 00;50;51;03

Aniq Chunnara

And so when we look at examples, as the United States, for example, right, when us in Nicaragua or currently situations across the world, in China, Uyghur population being like, you know, mass killed, but China, no one really hears about it, even though on paper or people call it a genocide, it's not brought to the forefront.

00;50;51;05 - 00;51;15;17

Aniq Chunnara

The issue then becomes is like we must elect officials within our own countries that represent international law on the larger level, and we have to encourage our institutions and our states to consistently be, at the forefront and represent international law and not undermine it by stepping away from it. And so the way we do that is obviously by think moral and political consistency.

00;51;15;19 - 00;51;43;19

Aniq Chunnara

And when I say that, I mean being historically accurate about how certain situations have come to light. And so if I were to use one example, which I think everyone sees in the news right now, which is Iran, right? We see such mass atrocities going on, and people being killed, people being hung, and individuals on the ground, citizens of Iran, like completely, you know, unable to have access to any of the rights, fundamental human rights that they have.

00;51;43;22 - 00;52;06;24

Aniq Chunnara

And at the same time, we have countries like the United States, you have the UAE and Pakistan, you have Israel all playing different roles, in Iran at the same time. But us as individuals, what's important for us is to be politically and morally consistent, which means, yes, we can say that on the ground in Iran right now, there are people getting absolute their human rights are absolutely lost.

00;52;06;24 - 00;52;24;14

Aniq Chunnara

They have no access to any fundamental rights that they have. At the same time, we can call out our own governments for saying, oh, we're going to come to your aid. We're going to be there for you. At the same time, if we look at history in the past, all that they have done is not be at the aid of the individuals that are in these nations.

00;52;24;16 - 00;52;49;05

Aniq Chunnara

And if anything, have only come in when their political and economic interests are served. So I think the biggest thing for us moving forward, is making sure that we look to elect individuals that actually represent international law and maintain it to be the foundation of their states. Otherwise, I think the erosion will continue to follow down the line.

00;52;49;07 - 00;53;38;08

Kateryna Onyshchenko

I think that, like we we all know what problems international organizations have. We know what we would like to change in the UN. We would like not to have permanent members of the Security Council. We would like we the resolutions of the general Assembly have a binding effect. Speaking on the International Criminal Court, I think that we would like the court to have a jurisdiction for the crime of aggression, and we would like to states cooperate more of us, ICC but at the same time, I think that, many of those reforms were like like which made some pretty easy, might be impossible to implement, at least now.

00;53;38;10 - 00;54;11;19

Kateryna Onyshchenko

And I think that many institutions and countries in general, like they are not exist in the vacuum like, so I think that what can help international law is probably time, unfortunately, because during, for example, during one century they like during the 20th century there were two big wars. There were smaller probably like 70 conflicts. And this politics are changing all the time.

00;54;11;21 - 00;54;43;25

Kateryna Onyshchenko

But for international law to develop takes many years. Speaking of international humanitarian law I think in 30 years it's going to be 200 years from this. Like from the moment it starts to develop, you know, it's not ideal yet. So I think probably time may help, and maybe some huge crisis, but I wouldn't to rely on that.

00;54;43;28 - 00;55;34;00

John Dover

Yeah, I think there's a lot of ideas that have been floated on how to help reform, the international legal structure from, the UN. See the Security Council having, abolishing the concept of permanent members to, the ICJ taking more of an aggressive stance on the limitation of the ability of states to engage in reservations. And, and there's there's a strong argument for a lot of these, however, I do largely agree with almost everything, Aniq said which is it's really hard to have any of these reforms take effect or have a positive impact, without the force of states behind them also believing in them.

00;55;34;03 - 00;55;56;16

John Dover

I think that embedded within the structure of international law is this concept that it's not quite a top down legal system that is going to tell states what it wants them to do, and states are going to all listen and then, fall in order. I think largely it comes from the concept that states are going to propel it forward to form a mutually beneficial, structure.

00;55;56;16 - 00;56;39;29

John Dover

And I and I think that a lot of the reform that can come from states is an enforcement and a re entrenchment in the idea that things such as human rights are mutually beneficial, that the belief that genocide is a crime is horrific, not only for the harms that it causes the people who experience it, but to us as a world community, from the effects that this can have on losing entire culture, entire peoples, and the long term effects that I think you particularly see it in environmental context, there's more on a more of a economic and, existential drive to address and by addressing environmental impacts, particularly as a, stop exclusively affecting

00;56;39;29 - 00;57;16;15

John Dover

the global South, which largely has been marginalized by the international legal framework. But I think a lot of this starts primarily within states, within forming that common belief and within electing leaders that also have this belief, that there is something beneficial about this project, that there is something beneficial about, laws which may not immediately benefit the benefit of country, but in a broader abstract way may serve its interests in the long term.

00;57;16;17 - 00;57;49;16

Amber Grimmer

I will echo and agree with Aniq's point that it's important to elect leaders who care about international law. That is very important. And also, echo John's point, about in terms of the United Nations Security Council, I think we definitely need to reconsider the permanent members and their veto power. For example, why why is.

00;57;49;18 - 00;57;53;04

Amber Grimmer

Yeah, I know.

00;57;53;06 - 00;58;27;20

Amber Grimmer

Yeah. We really need to reconsider that. And, more broadly, I think in each of these institutions that I think reform that needs to happen, I don't know how exactly, but we really need to just reel in the political power of of the big of these big, powerful countries, because they are you would you would think the people who had such a big hand in creating international law would also like to respect it, but that is not what we're seeing.

00;58;27;23 - 00;59;08;02

Amber Grimmer

And do anything we can, to resolve that. And it's like what I like to see. Finally, more generally, I think we need to include the voices of more, women and, have a more diverse, see more diverse people. And as international leaders, of all of these big conflicts that we hear about, the other issues on the news, are any of those leaders women? No, like so, maybe that's more correlation than causation, but I just I really want to end on that note.

00;59;08;04 - 00;59;11;03

Amber Grimmer

Thank you.

00;59;11;05 - 00;59;36;11

Rida Abbas

Yeah, I were just I mean, we hope that we know you will one day be, you know, be changing the international legal order. And that is why you're also part of our esteemed panel today. We'll be moving on to the Q&A section, which Lucas and Grace will be handling.

00;59;36;13 - 01;00;02;11

Lucas Levy

Thank you to the panelists. We have now come to the panel section of the event, and we will be transitioning to the Q&A section. So if anybody in the audience has a question, please raise your hand and we will call on you.

01;00;02;13 - 01;00;29;16

Audience Member

Thank you. My name is Julissa and I have a question specifically about women in international law. And, kind of related to the answer that you just gave me. I just recently did some work on UN resolution 1325, in Colombia. And I was wondering what you guys thought about the continuation of this, like, of this resolution and how do you see improvements in these countries national action plans?

01;00;29;16 - 01;01;03;23

Audience Member

Because we personally, when I worked in Colombia, I saw a huge there's not much focus being put, on the accomplishment of these like peace guidelines. And I think this is really important for us to focus on, especially with women's unique roles in conflict and how they should be included in peace systems and peacebuilding. So I wonder, I'm wondering what you guys think of that and what you guys think will be happening in the future, and what we can do to help women in this situation as well.

01;01;03;26 - 01;01;55;17

Multiple Speakers

Would you mind explaining? UN 1325. I'm not familiar. Yeah. So you went 13. You want resolution? 1325 is a resolution that is, focused on women, particularly their, unique situation when it comes to the conflict situation, like in conflict situations, it recognizes and it causes all countries that are involved that sign to recognize that women are disproportionately affected by conflict situations and that these countries have a, responsibility to, provide defenses for these women, programs for these women, and, to include them in the peacebuilding process because, you know, they're the ones who are most affected

01;01;55;19 - 01;02;29;23

Amber Grimmer

Thank you so much for your great question. So, I was not familiar with that specific resolution, but overall, based on what you said, I think that is the right way to go. I am currently doing my research on, reparations for conflict related sexual violence in Ukraine. So conflict related sexual violence has something that's been occurring in Ukraine since the full scale invasion, but also before with their invasions into Crimea.

01;02;29;26 - 01;03;03;26

Amber Grimmer

And, there has been a civil society has had an essential, role in being able to address this, even more so than these like, big international organizations that we've been talking about. They do a good job of of talking about it. But these, on the ground civil society organizations have been doing even a better job of actually, providing, people, a lot of whom are women, with support.

01;03;04;03 - 01;03;31;14

Amber Grimmer

So they provide, reparations of currently used to be taxed the equivalent of 3000, U.S. dollars or something around there and, provide other support services. So I think, that's a new challenge. That is when there is not only sexual violence, but also other forms of the many forms of violence that occur in conflicts. Let's think about reparations

01;03;31;16 - 01;03;58;17

Amber Grimmer

Ideally that includes some accountability from the perpetrators, but it can be hard to track down those perpetrators, and it can be hard to adjudicate those, cases to, make make someone go on the stand explaining their trauma versus if it can be done administratively like it has been done, in Ukraine, then, it can be a much commentary process and people can get the reparations they need right away.

01;03;58;17 - 01;04;35;29

Multiple Speakers

It's called the Urgent Interim Reparations program because they recognize that that it is urgent and it's interim because it's why they wait for like true accountability. So I, I support those measures. And, thank you so much for your question. And recognizing the roles of women in conflict. I would just like to add charity, that I know that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is working really closely with the young women in Ukraine, on implementation of this resolution.

01;04;36;01 - 01;05;03;03

Kateryna Onyshchenko

But I would say that somehow it's easier in the victims part, but harder on the part of including women in like in these processes. But it's something that has to be still done. And I think that, talking about Ukraine is something that Minister of Foreign Affairs is trying to do.

01;05;03;05 - 01;05;31;05

John Dover

And if I, if I can briefly add a little a little touch of hope, I mean, the ICJ at least is moving positively in this direction. They have the most women that they've ever had as judges currently, which I must shamefully add is 4. But I would say the one caveat have that's a little bit of hope here is that I think predominantly when you see interns in the space, or judicial fellows at the ICJ, more often than I, it's like 70% women.

01;05;31;05 - 01;05;54;26

Multiple Speakers

So it's just a shame that most the judges are very old. And so, you know, and hopefully 40 years or something maybe, you know, we'll have a little better ratio. But, I guess it's kind of have to wait and see. I didn't really have any got to this, but I just remembered something. So when I went to work in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, there's a obviously the judicial clerk program and of the 19 clerks that are ministry for Pakistan.

01;05;54;26 - 01;06;19;09

Aniq Chunnara

When I was there, 14 were women, which I thought was incredible. And I didn't expect that going into it, just based on like, what you would think of, Islamic country necessarily. But those are the times are changing. And, one of the most influential justices on the Supreme Court, Pakistan is female as well. So I think there is like a great progress being made and like it needs to continue.

01;06;19;11 - 01;06;29;10

Grace Bashawaty

More audience questions?

01;06;29;13 - 01;06;51;12

Audience Member

Coming about to the point regarding the, we're responsible for the violations. So hypothetically, the right leaders are chosen in future elections. Like, how reversible is the damage? The precedent being set, how aggressive about their.

01;06;51;15 - 01;07;12;09

Aniq Chunnara

I guess I'll start out here and, we've all heard, like the saying, of time heals all wounds. And unfortunately, that time can be very long. I think a lot of the damage has already been done and it's continuing to be done. But I think one of the things that we have to look at as a group collectively is we have to humanize international law in many ways.

01;07;12;09 - 01;07;31;11

Aniq Chunnara

And if we keep this mindset, then we're able to help do our part in reforming international law. And by that I mean saying, no matter if you agree or disagree with a certain side, you have to break it down and try to find as many truths as possible. And that's super difficult. I'll admit, that's the most difficult thing in today's society.

01;07;31;11 - 01;07;53;06

Aniq Chunnara

Now is going through the myriad of views that we get every day and trying to figure out what is right, what is wrong, what is true, and what is not. And I think I struggle with that on a daily basis. And so I think the biggest way that to combat that is humanizing international law. And so, for example, is actually, speaking with the fellow student from the law school was an alum from Israel yesterday.

01;07;53;09 - 01;08;13;04

Aniq Chunnara

And, we were talking about like the Saturday protests in Israel and so many people like, don't even know that this goes on. But every Saturday there are a collective group of almost like tens of thousands of people that take the streets and celebrate, and they protest the current regime in Israel, right in the same way in Pakistan, when I was there, there's PTI protests.

01;08;13;04 - 01;08;40;02

Aniq Chunnara

So the current Pakistani regime that's in power is very much like a military autocracy. And they like jailed. The past prime minister, who was democratically elected. So there is also huge amounts of protest in that way as well. So the more that you actually look at the human side of international law, you find these commonalities and you find these like areas that are so much more similar about people who actually care about where they live and who they are.

01;08;40;04 - 01;09;01;18

Aniq Chunnara

The real perpetrators, they're only a handful. They're just the ones who have the most power in those seats of power. In the U.S, if you look around, it's not the majority of individuals in this room saying that, oh, we need to go Park Street, perpetrate these crimes and go to war with all these countries. No, it's a handful of individuals that sit in the seats of power that say, oh, we have a financial interest in going to war here.

01;09;01;23 - 01;09;23;29

Aniq Chunnara

We have a financial interest in going and removing Maduro from Venezuela. Right. So those are the individuals that we have to be so critical of, right. In the same way as you look at Israel, it's not the people of Israel or necessarily the country that's the issue. It's the individuals in power. And if you the best way to look about it, even in Iran, if you look at it, it's not the individuals, it's the current regime in power.

01;09;23;29 - 01;09;47;08

Aniq Chunnara

And then you just look at the history and you're able to see that over the past, like 40 to 50 years. U.S. involvement one and two, so many more countries across the world have become these populists and like theocratic, not necessarily even theocratic, but nationalistic in nature. India is one of them. Pakistan is another, like the list goes on and on, right?

01;09;47;15 - 01;10;14;27

Aniq Chunnara

And you see the similarity across so many countries. And that's the biggest danger that we have, is that with technology and the improvements that there are with military improvements necessarily, it's very difficult for us to have any power, if at all. Right. And that concentration of power in so few hands is the biggest fear that international law faces, because it can't compete when it comes militarily to it.

01;10;15;04 - 01;10;36;07

Aniq Chunnara

It can't compete when it comes to diplomacy, because these few actors from across the globe are all correlated and they're all together. But ultimately, what we can do is we can humanize international law and look at what do people on the ground actually feel, and what can we do to tell their stories in the most, like, you know, truthful way possible?

01;10;36;14 - 01;11;02;09

Aniq Chunnara

And also acknowledge that some of the countries that are saying that they can come in and help have never had a history of helping those individuals. If you look at Iran, the US and Israel, like, obviously they're saying, oh, we want to help free the people in our honor, but they have no credibility in saying that anymore. Their credibility was lost when over the past 50 or 60 years, they've perpetrated innocent, like they, you know, killed so many innocent lives across the Middle East.

01;11;02;09 - 01;11;18;13

Aniq Chunnara

Right. So at the same time, we have been critical of our own governments. And that goes across the board for any government across the board. So that's, I guess, one of the ways I would answer that question

01;11;18;15 - 01;11;38;20

John Dover

I would just say briefly, I think that if we look at the extent to which damage has been done to the international legal orders, reversible. I think personally, I think the, the legal, the damage done to legal order is incredibly reversible. Right? I think, it really just takes a change of leadership and a change of belief in a lot of these things.

01;11;38;20 - 01;12;07;20

John Dover

So I don't think the underlying fundamental nature of it has changed. It always has been a largely consent based, structure. I think what will change largely is perspectives on people within that structure. Like I think the United States obviously has lost a lot of credibility in the space. And so have other international powers. With that being said, I think there's also some questions there of the United States pulling out a lot of funding from the UN makes, has made a lot of states incredibly upset.

01;12;07;22 - 01;12;24;01

John Dover

And I think it's still left to be answered. How will those states accept if there is a change of leadership? How would they accept the money? How would they going to feel about this, a new influx of money? I think going to Geneva, you can feel there's like everything like the strings, the penny definitely tightening a lot.

01;12;24;03 - 01;12;57;12

John Dover

And, I have no doubts that once the money's available again, everyone will be happy to accept it. But I don't know if they'll necessarily really return the United States, to any sort of moral high ground by any regards. But also, I would like to add that on the other end, I think that there is a little bit of, silver lining here because I think that, the waning credibility of large states such as the United States has kind of left a vacuum which, certain developing nations have kind of had made a lot of inroads into utilizing these structures, which have been traditionally not been open to them, were not designed

01;12;57;12 - 01;13;19;25

John Dover

for them to use. However, they have found ways to utilize these and probably some of the most clever ways that I think you really see. So, for example, I do a lot of my work, focuses on the development of another national crime eco side. And I think this would be specifically within context, international criminal Court, the International Criminal Court, if you look at the history of it exclusively, really, punishes developing nations.

01;13;19;25 - 01;13;41;17

John Dover

Right. And that's not to say that, the people at the punishes aren't don't deserve it by any means. But this is to say, it's not hasn't gone after, you know, a leader of any of the permanent members of the Security Council. But that being said, is the push to develop that new international crime has been exclusively from developing states and island nations, Nations which historically, when think is the main drivers of power within these spaces.

01;13;41;19 - 01;13;55;09

John Dover

So, I think a lot of the damage done is reversible, but I hope there's some trends that aren't reversed, because I don't think everything has been entirely negative. Coming out of this.

01;13;55;12 - 01;14;25;09

Audience Member

Questions. Okay. Thank you. I want to go back to the conversation about accountability and enforcement. I'm wondering more specifically for the people who worked at the ICJ. Is the ICJ continues increasing visibility in cases such as South Africa, the Israel sign of you think renewed legal relevance or more of a symbolic law without any kind of enforcement power?

01;14;25;11 - 01;14;47;00

Aniq Chunnara

I can start there. There is a symbolic aspect to it now, and I think. But that's across the board, across the world, even if you look in the United States and when you study U.S. law, you'll see there's so many constitutional cases that are even tried on what the facts of the case are. They're thrown out on some legality, on some sort of, oh, this case is not even tribal in this court.

01;14;47;06 - 01;15;05;15

Aniq Chunnara

And you see that same thing happening in the ICJ. When I was at the ICJ, I got to work on the UAE versus Sudan case, which the UAE, Sudan perpetrated. The UAE was helping and committing a genocide within Sudan with the Royal Support Forces, which is like a secondary military within Sudan. And the case was thrown out on a technicality.

01;15;05;21 - 01;15;34;10

Aniq Chunnara

It was thrown out. I didn't even get to be heard. Right. All the facts, all the pictures, all the documentation not wasted, but unusable because of a technicality of the UAE being, you know, saying that they are technically, signed off to this specific amendment of the Rome statute session. So I think that is where you see international law become very symbolic, because, yes, you had a case, you brought it forward, but there's no actual action coming out of it.

01;15;34;12 - 01;15;57;07

Aniq Chunnara

And in the same way that happens in the US a lot as well, that happens in Pakistan when I was working there as well. So none of these organizations, none of these countries are perfect. But at the same time, like there needs to be reform in that area. So I do believe that a lot of it has become symbolic in the past couple of years just because enforcement is so difficult.

01;15;57;10 - 01;16;09;16

Aniq Chunnara

And that's where like, a lot of the work will be necessary to revitalize and reimagine. What does enforcement look like? Across the border.

01;16;09;19 - 01;16;24;18

John Dover

Yeah. I mean, I agree with a lot of what I said. I think, the ICJ is a really interesting time right now. There's been periods in the ICJ history where they've gone over a year without ever having a case submitted to it, and now it has the most cases it's ever had in its history, with 23.

01;16;24;18 - 01;16;52;03

John Dover

Correct. Now, I might be wrong there, but something along there, and I think this is kind of an open question, is you have all these cases before the ICJ. It's not entirely certain how many of these decisions will be complied with, particularly when you start placing, an understanding that now more and more, you're starting to see cases such as South Africa v Israel, Cambodia, Myanmar, these genocide cases, and human rights cases, which hasn't really historically been what the ICJ does.

01;16;52;05 - 01;17;11;09

John Dover

I think often when people think of the ICJ, they think of these cases, but largely it's like very weird territorial disputes or, there's yes, there's a lot of maps in the archives that I'm getting at. And so that those decisions are really easy to see how you get a lot of, enforcement on how you or not enforcement, but a lot of, compliance.

01;17;11;09 - 01;17;33;19

John Dover

And the compliance rate is really high. I think it's like 90% or so much higher than you would think, considering that in theory, the ICJ itself has no enforcement power. So I think there is some question about how this will kind of pan out, particularly with South Africa v Israel. Right now is Gambia v Myanmar. And then I think we also are kind of seeing a shake up in the states that are coming to the ICJ.

01;17;33;24 - 01;18;00;09

John Dover

I think you're seeing more and more states in the global South. You're starting city states such as, The Gambia, bringing a case versus Myanmar on a general jurisdiction basis of the crime of genocide as opposed to being directly implicated in conflict. And I think you're also seeing a big shake up in the composition of the court, particularly with, Russia and the United Kingdom no longer having a spot in the court, whereas typically was historically thought that they would always be the five permanent members would always have a place in the court.

01;18;00;11 - 01;18;23;03

John Dover

So I think it's a little bit of history that maybe it doesn't go to your question, but, I think this question is kind of a very interesting one. I think it's really open to be answered. And it will be answered, when we see how states kind of, comply or don't comply. But then I think we kind of does elucidate some of the less, enforcement nature.

01;18;23;05 - 01;18;44;26

John Dover

Functions of the ICJ in which you can now have these hearings where you give states the opportunity to really flesh out these legal arguments and get a better idea of the functions of the treaties, particularly the genocide treaty, convention. And, I think that even if you don't have direct compliance within the specific context, it might have beneficial knock on effects.

01;18;44;28 - 01;18;54;10

John Dover

But yeah. Yeah, it's it's a really interesting time and it's only really time will tell. To be honest.

01;18;54;12 - 01;19;33;11

Kateryna Onyshchenko

I would like to add briefly, when the full scale invasion started, Ukraine, went to the ICJ on the genocide case. And I think on the third week, ICJ ordered Russia to immediately suspend all military operations in Ukraine. And even though Russia never going to implement this decision, this decision is still legally binding. And Ukraine can rely at every time and can say that there is a legally binding decision and Russia's action in in violation of it.

01;19;33;11 - 01;19;47;16

Kateryna Onyshchenko

And so I think even though it's symbolic, it's still something that it's important to have. And it's better to have this than have nothing.

01;19;47;18 - 01;19;57;06

Grace Bashawaty

Thank you. Anyone from the audience?

01;19;57;09 - 01;20;25;15

Audience Member

Hi. So I have a specific question for Amber. So, I have a lot of personal ties to Haiti A lot as a kid. And so I'm curious, you mentioned you had two of us, and work experience is related to Haiti And so I'm curious, I may ask, how did those two experiences shape your personal views on U.S intervention as well as based on your work experience?

01;20;25;15 - 01;20;37;29

Audience Member

What do you see as being the broader implications on international law in Western?

01;20;38;02 - 01;21;23;25

Amber Grimmer

Yeah. This is a I thank you for your question. This is a sometimes a question like I wrestle with myself because I, when I was interning at the Institute for justice in the bankruptcy in Haiti, I, I, I did believe in the mission of the organization, and I, I did buy into the arguments that, people, that the people in the organization were making, if we want a similar to what I was saying before, the laws are written by the winners.

01;21;23;27 - 01;21;51;04

Amber Grimmer

And it's not always for the best. It's not always for the best. Right. We do need to include more voices. So if we think about transitional justice and transitioning to a stable and sustainable and democracy for generations to come, and it needs to really include the voices of the people who with lived experiences and come from there.

01;21;51;04 - 01;22;30;05

Amber Grimmer

So that's like super important. And I still agree with that. And I stand by it. A year or two later, I was working, at the State Department, and I was specifically in the Office of European Union and Regional Affairs. So this was not directly working on Haiti, but how it works is, they, they on a whole host of issues, they need to say, how do we align with our partners who are the EU on these issues?

01;22;30;07 - 01;22;56;20

Amber Grimmer

And so, one person's portfolio was Haiti and I, I stories like, oh, are you aware of this? Like it's like a big campaign. It's like U.S. hands off, you know? And, she wasn't aware of this. I think that goes to one issue. I lots of issues. One issue at the State Department is, the whole organization is, like, shuffled around and every two years.

01;22;56;27 - 01;23;20;19

Amber Grimmer

So every two years, I want you working on changes. And so I don't think anyone is really, like, an expert in what they in the one thing that they are actually working on that's a little so intentioned, but, can you imagine that question? I think the a big thing that the US State Department does throughout the world is like work towards democracy the way they do it.

01;23;20;19 - 01;23;49;01

Amber Grimmer

That is probably not always the best way. It's a good ideal to like, work towards democracy. But, why should the US idea of democracy, democracy be the one that is imposed everywhere, especially right now? I think that's a bit hypocritical. So those those are the ideas I've been like grappling with around that issue. So thank you for your question.

01;23;49;04 - 01;24;07;28

Grace Bashawaty

Thank you to the audience for their welcome questions and thank you to the panelists for their thoughtful answers. We have some pizza leftover. If you guys want to enjoy that, And. Yeah. Thank you. Lets give one last round of applause for.