During the fighting in Gaza and Ukraine, the post-1948 system is “at risk of decimation”: amnesty
Amnesty International has warned that the world is facing the breakdown of the 1948 international order, which was formed in the aftermath of World War II, amid the terrible battles in Gaza and Ukraine and authoritarian practices that are now spreading.
The most powerful countries in the world, including those of China, Russia, and the United States, were charged with spearheading a worldwide disdain for international laws and principles found in the December 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In her preamble to the report, Secretary-General Agnes Callamard described the conflict in Gaza, which started on October 7, as a “descent into hell” in which “the ‘never again’ moral and legal lessons [of 1948] were torn into a million pieces.”
Callamard said that Israel’s “campaign of retaliation” had evolved into a “campaign of collective punishment,” citing that Hamas had perpetrated “horrific crimes” in its attack on towns in southern Israel on October 7.
Amnesty International said that although Israel persisted in flouting international human rights legislation, the US, its main ally, and other nations, such as the UK and Germany, were engaging in “grotesque double standards” by supporting Israeli and US authorities in Gaza while denouncing war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine.
Israel’s egregious disdain for international law is made worse by its partners’ inability to put an end to the unspeakable human carnage occurring in Gaza. Callamard said, “Many of those allies were the very architects of that post-World War II system of law.” “The global rule-based order is at risk of decimating along with Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, the growing number of armed conflicts, and massive human rights violations witnessed, for example, in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Myanmar.”
During the previous six months, Israeli bombardment on Gaza has resulted in at least 34,183 Palestinian deaths and 77,143 injuries, while on October 7, over 1,100 individuals were murdered and several more were captured by Hamas.
