International law or the law of the stronger?

The United States and Israel attacked Iran. Their armed forces killed members of the government and numerous civilians. A few weeks earlier, American special forces kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, also killing civilians. The vast majority of international law experts believe that both military actions violated international law.

Despite this, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz did not clearly condemn the attacks. After the attack on Iran, he said: "We see the dilemma that legal measures, which are in accordance with international law, against a regime that is developing nuclear weapons and brutally oppressing its own people are clearly not achieving anything."

He called the legal situation surrounding Maduro's kidnapping - while avoiding a specific answer - "complex." Before visiting the White House, immediately after the first attacks on Iran, Merz also made it clear that he did not want to "teach" US President Donald Trump about international law. Critics from the opposition have accused Merz of pandering to Trump.

The right can be undermined

A number of international law experts and other scholars criticized the German government's behavior and warned of the consequences in an open letter dated March 17. It states: "The German government's statements to date do not demonstrate a clear condemnation of actions that violate international law and thus contribute to the further undermining of the rules-based and institutional order in Europe and the world."

Janina Dill teaches law at the University of Oxford in Britain and also signed the March 17 letter. She told DW: "Currently, it is the policies of the great powers, and in particular the turn in American policy, namely the move away from international law - that is causing enormous damage to law."

Her colleague Anne Peters, director of the Max Planck Institute and expert on foreign and international law in Heidelberg, warns in an interview with DW "that unwritten international law can change if violations of international law are not responded to with protests. There is a danger that the prohibition on the use of force will be undermined and the rules will change if violations of rights are not criticized."

Accusation of double standards

It is striking that the Chancellor has downplayed the importance of international law in the cases of Venezuela and Iran, but in the war in Ukraine he has sharply and clearly condemned the violation of international law – by Russia. "In fact, the Chancellor treats international law as he sees fit at the given moment," Henning Hof of the German Foreign Policy Association recently said in an interview with DW.

Criticism from the global South is also that the West, depending on its own interests, sometimes insists on international law, and at other times simply ignores it. "There is no obligation to criticize or sanction other countries in the same way," says Anne Peters. "Germany can, based on political considerations, criticize one country - for example Putin's Russia - and not others. This is different from international organizations, which by their very nature should be neutral. But of course it undermines the credibility of a country, including Germany, if the same situations are assessed in different ways."

Peters, however, believes that the accusation of double standards is in some cases a transparent maneuver: "This accusation that the West, in particular, applies double standards usually comes from China and Russia. But it is purely opportunistic, because these countries are not really looking for an even distribution of sanctions, but would rather not be criticized at all and there would be no sanctions."

Weaker states need law more than strong ones.

Janina Deal of Oxford is concerned about global developments – “the widening gap between actual military and economic power and the will to uphold international law.” This is increasingly true for the US, in addition to Russia and China. “The great powers are less and less interested in enforcing the law.”

But what can weaker states – including Germany – do? “That would mean that all other states have an even greater interest in invoking the law and collectively standing up for it,” says Dill. “Because they really need norms, institutions and rules for the peaceful resolution of conflicts – all the more so as the great powers act more freely and arbitrarily, disregarding international law and sometimes even threatening it.”

German president indirectly criticizes chancellor

Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) does not want to participate in a war against Iran on the side of the US, but he leaves the question of international law unanswered for now.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, however, found clear words and indirectly criticized the chancellor. At an event at the Foreign Ministry, he said that the war against Iran, which was launched by Israel and the US, was a “politically fatal mistake.” He called on the German government to take a clear stance: “Our foreign policy will not be more convincing if we do not call the violation of international law by its rightful name – a violation of international law. International law is not an old glove that we should throw away when others do it. On the contrary – it is of vital importance for all countries that are not great powers.”

It is very unusual for the federal president to openly contradict the chancellor on such an important foreign policy issue. Merz has not yet responded to Steinmeier's criticism.

However, Jens Spahn, head of the CDU and CSU parliamentary group, called on the German president to exercise restraint. "The legal assessment under international law in this, as in other cases, is a matter for the federal government and I expect the office holders in the Federal Republic of Germany to await that assessment and to respect it," Spahn said.

The German government also wanted to publish a legal assessment of the US military action in Venezuela in January, but stated that it would “take time.” To date, there has been no final assessment.