The utter hypocrisy of many European leaders when it comes to international law is staggering

After United States president Donald Trump’s recent pronouncements and threats concerning Greenland, these leaders were quick to highlight the importance of adhering to international law: French president Emmanuel Macron warned of a shift towards a world where international law is trampled underfoot; British prime minister Keir Starmer vowed to defend international law; German chancellor Friedrich Merz claimed Europe had found “self-respect” in standing up for a rules-based global order.

Yet when it comes to the crime of crimes that is genocide, currently ongoing in Gaza, France, Britain and Germany, along with many other countries that profess to respect international law, are complicit. Their endorsement of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, UN security council resolution 2803, has opened up a Pandora’s box that will ride roughshod over the fundamental rights of the Palestinians, violating both international law and the UN Charter – the very things that they feign to defend!

The veil of deceit behind Western liberal democracy’s asymmetric implementation of the international rules-based order was lifted in Davos last month. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s speech was unusual in the fact that he openly revealed what countries in the Global South have long known: namely that the “international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically, and… that international law applied with varied rigour, depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

The lack of accountability for Israel’s systematic violation of international law whilst the inalienable right of Palestinians to self-determination is denied is but one glaring example of this.

Like Canada, many of the European states that also prospered for decades from this rigged system, at the expense of many other states, are now feeling uneasy about their powerful ‘so called’ ally, led by a mafia don more accustomed to coercion and extortion than diplomacy, as they witness how easily it can turn against them.

Too many of our current European leaders, bereft of any coherent vision of how to address the existential challenges that the world faces, have slavishly followed America down a dangerous path where the echoes of 1930s’ fascism can be clearly heard.

They must not assume that their nations will be protected or immune from the destructive effects of this direction of travel. They must find the backbone to move in a different direction.

One that has a vision for peace, security, prosperity, and social and environmental justice for all; moves away from confrontation towards cooperation, recognising that security for one nation at the expense of another means security for neither; and ensures international law, and institutions like the UN that play a crucial role in underpinning it, work equitably for all states and are not abandoned and replaced by a nakedly neo-colonial administration serving imperialistic interests.

Unfortunately, change is unlikely to happen without significant public pressure.

This certainly applies in the case of the European Union, which, despite overwhelming evidence of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and multiple violations of human rights and international law, as identified by both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, continues to take no meaningful action to condemn or sanction Israel.

The EU-Israel Association Agreement, which helps legitimise and finance Israel’s illegal actions, is maintained. EU founding treaties, which make it clear that all actions and policies of the EU, including international agreements, must contribute to, and ensure respect for, human rights and international law are ignored.

For the EU it is business as usual, and that business is significant.

According to the EU Commission, the EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner: total trade in goods between the EU and Israel in 2024 amounted to €42.6 billion, and the two-way trade in services between the EU and Israel ln 2023 was valued at €25.6 billion.

There are no valid excuses for the EU not to fully suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Not only does its founding treaties oblige it to act, but also UN treaties, customary international law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice.

In order to put pressure on the EU to do this, a European Citizens’ Initiative petition has been set up to demand the full suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. It is very important that this European citizens’ initiative succeeds. Let the EU be left in no doubt that its citizens will not tolerate a situation where the EU maintains an agreement that aids and abets a genocidal regime that consistently violates human rights and international law.

Please share this petition widely so that it quickly reaches the thresholds necessary for a citizens’ initiative to be valid – at least one million signatures by EU citizens and the minimum thresholds met in at least seven EU countries.

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