SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
");background-position:center;background-size:19px 19px;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-color:var(--button-bg-color);padding:0;width:var(--form-elem-height);height:var(--form-elem-height);font-size:0;}:is(.js-newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter_bar.newsletter-wrapper) .widget__body:has(.response:not(:empty)) :is(.widget__headline, .widget__subheadline, #mc_embed_signup .mc-field-group, #mc_embed_signup input[type="submit"]){display:none;}:is(.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper) #mce-responses:has(.response:not(:empty)){grid-row:1 / -1;grid-column:1 / -1;}.newsletter-wrapper .widget__body > .snark-line:has(.response:not(:empty)){grid-column:1 / -1;}:is(.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper) :is(.newsletter-campaign:has(.response:not(:empty)), .newsletter-and-social:has(.response:not(:empty))){width:100%;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;justify-content:center;align-items:center;gap:8px 20px;margin:0 auto;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col .text-element{display:flex;color:var(--shares-color);margin:0 !important;font-weight:400 !important;font-size:16px !important;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col .whitebar_social{display:flex;gap:12px;width:auto;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col a{margin:0;background-color:#0000;padding:0;width:32px;height:32px;}.newsletter-wrapper .social_icon:after{display:none;}.newsletter-wrapper .widget article:before, .newsletter-wrapper .widget article:after{display:none;}#sFollow_Block_0_0_1_0_0_0_1{margin:0;}.donation_banner{position:relative;background:#000;}.donation_banner .posts-custom *, .donation_banner .posts-custom :after, .donation_banner .posts-custom :before{margin:0;}.donation_banner .posts-custom .widget{position:absolute;inset:0;}.donation_banner__wrapper{position:relative;z-index:2;pointer-events:none;}.donation_banner .donate_btn{position:relative;z-index:2;}#sSHARED_-_Support_Block_0_0_7_0_0_3_1_0{color:#fff;}#sSHARED_-_Support_Block_0_0_7_0_0_3_1_1{font-weight:normal;}.sticky-sidebar{margin:auto;}@media (min-width: 1024px){.main:has(.sticky-sidebar){overflow:visible;}}@media (min-width: 1024px){.row:has(.sticky-sidebar){display:flex;overflow:visible;}}@media (min-width: 1024px){.sticky-sidebar{position:-webkit-sticky;position:sticky;top:100px;transition:top .3s ease-in-out, position .3s ease-in-out;}}.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper.sidebar{background:linear-gradient(91deg, #005dc7 28%, #1d63b2 65%, #0353ae 85%);}
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
The E.U. must unite with all like-minded countries against the illiberal nationalists who are challenging universal values and international law.
The news of Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest surprised me.
It’s not that I doubted the former leader of the Philippines was guilty of the horrific crimes detailed in his International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant. Duterte himself boasted quite openly of the mass killings he’s been accused of. But I always thought that the prospects of bringing that brutal, outspoken politician to justice were remote indeed.
After all, Duterte’s daughter Sara is currently the vice president of the Philippines and that country is no longer a member of the ICC. On top of that, Duterte himself was so sure of his immunity that he was running for mayor of the city of Davao. In mid-March, after returning from campaigning in the Filipino community in Hong Kong, he suffered the indignity of being arrested in his own country.
The International Criminal Court’s arrest of Rodrigo Duterte should be a powerful reminder that justice is possible even in the most unjust of times.
Forgive me for saying this, but I just hadn’t thought the ICC was still truly functioning, given that the leaders of the most powerful countries on this planet—the United States, China, and Russia—don’t give a fig about human rights or international law. Sure, the ICC did issue high-profile arrest warrants for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges, but no one expects those rogues to be taken into custody anytime soon. And the impunity for the powerful has only become more entrenched now that a convicted felon squats in the White House.
The specialty of the ICC has, of course, been arresting human-rights abusers in truly weak or failed states like Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Côte d’Ivoire, and Hashim Thaçi, former president of Kosovo. With the world’s 31st largest economy, however, the Philippines is no failed state. Still, without nuclear weapons or a huge army, it’s no powerhouse either. Indeed, it was only when the Philippines became ever weaker—because of a feud between President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte (accused of threatening to assassinate him)—that the ICC had a chance to grab its target and spirit him away to The Hague to stand trial.
The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte might, in fact, seem like the exception that proves the (new) rule. After all, the international community and its institutions are currently facing a crisis of global proportions with violations of international law becoming ever more commonplace in this era of ascendant right-wing rogue states.
In 2014, Russia first grabbed Ukrainian territory, launching an all-out invasion in 2022. Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, sent troops into southern Lebanon, and expanded its footprint in Syria. U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken repeatedly of seizing Greenland, absorbing Canada as the 51st state, and retaking the Panama Canal, among other things. Small countries like Taiwan can’t sleep for fear of a late-night visit from jackbooted thugs.
But then there’s Europe.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s dramatic return to the stage as a bull in the global china shop, European leaders have hastened to replace the United States as the voice of liberal internationalist institutions like the ICC. Of course, the U.S. was never actually a member of the ICC, which suggests that Europe has always been more connected to the rule of law than most American politicians. After all, if Duterte had been sent to Washington today—not to mention Beijing, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Moscow, or New Delhi—he would undoubtedly have been feted as an exemplary law-and-order politico rather than, as in The Hague, placed behind bars and put on trial.
This transatlantic divergence was only sharpened in mid-February when Vice President JD Vance berated an audience of Europeans at the Munich Security Conference, singling out for criticism Europe’s support of feminism and pro-choice policies, its rejection of Russian election interference (by overturning a Kremlin-manipulated presidential election in Romania), and its refusal to tolerate fascist and neo-fascist parties (shunning, among others, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD). By urging them to worry more about internal challenges to “democracy” in Europe than the challenges presented by either Russia or China, Vance was effectively siding with illiberal adversaries against liberal allies.
In a certain sense, however, he was also eerily on target: Europe does indeed face all-too-many internal challenges to democracy. But they come from his ideological compatriots there like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, and far-right political parties like Germany’s AfD, as well as ultra-conservative cultural movements that target immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and secular multiculturalists.
Vance opposes mainstream European opinion, which has directly or indirectly challenged Donald Trump’s MAGA proposals and policies, as well as his rejection of the reality of climate change. Europe has, of course, been stepping up its defense of Ukraine, remains committed to promoting human rights, and adheres to democratic principles in the form of regular electoral checks and balances, as well as safeguards for civil society. Above all, unlike the Trump administration, it continues to move forward on the European Green Deal and a program to leave behind fossil fuels.
These were, of course, fairly uncontroversial positions until Trump reentered the White House.
Can Europe sustain that fragile plant of liberalism during this harsh winter of right-wing populism? Much depends on some risky bets. Will U.S. foreign policy swing back in favor of democracy, human rights, and transatlantic relations in four years? Will the weight of a never-ending war, in the end, dislodge Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin? Will Ukraine overcome its own internal divisions to become part of a newly enlarged European Union (EU)? Will Bibi Netanyahu someday become Duterte’s cellmate?
At the moment, unfortunately, it seems more likely that Europe will be the last powerful holdout in a world entering a new political Dark Age. A dismal scenario lurks on the horizon in which democracy and human rights cling to existence somewhere within the walls of the European Union, much as monasteries managed to preserve classical learning a millennium ago.
After Trump and Vance humiliated Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his White House visit in February, an ideologically diverse range of European leaders raced to support the Ukrainian leader and his country. But defending democracy means all too little if that defense remains largely verbal.
So, no longer being able to count on U.S. power or NATO security guarantees in the age of Trump, European Union leaders have decided to visit the gym and muscle up. Shortly after Zelenskyy’s meeting, the E.U. readied a large military spending bill meant to contribute to the “security of Europe as a whole, in particular as regards the E.U.’s eastern border, considering the threats posed by Russia and Belarus.” About $150 billion more would be invested in the military budgets of member states. The E.U. will also relax debt limits to allow nearly $700 billion in such additional spending over the next four years.
Semi-socialist, DEI-loving, human-rights-supporting, Israel-skeptical, Europe is everything Donald Trump hates. Think of the E.U., in fact, as the global equivalent of his worst nightmare, a giant liberal arts campus.
Of course, in the past, Europe’s vaunted social democracy was largely built on low defense spending and a reliance on Washington’s security umbrella. That “peace dividend” saved E.U. member states a huge chunk of money—nearly $400 billion every year since the end of the Cold War—that could be applied to social welfare and infrastructure expenses. Forcing NATO members to spend a higher percentage of their gross domestic product on their militaries is a dagger that both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are holding to the throat of Europe’s social democracy. Germany can still afford to engage in deficit spending for both guns and butter, but it presents a distinct problem for countries like Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain with high levels of government debt.
And when it comes to Europe’s future, it’s not just a military affair. While some European leaders have used intelligence assessments to focus on Putin’s territorial ambitions, others are more anxious about Russia’s assault on their values. Fearful of the way the illiberal values of Putin and Trump seem to overlap, Europeans have cast the fate of Ukraine in the loftiest of terms: the defense of democracy against fascism. However, given the connections between the European far-right and the Kremlin—thanks to Germany’s AfD, the two French far-right parties (National Rally and Reconquest), and Bulgaria’s Revival among others—the fight against fascism is now taking place on the home front as well.
Europe is also defending democratic values in other ways. It has long promoted DEI-like programs, beginning with France’s diversity charter in 2004, while the European Commission is committed to equality for the LGBTQ community. In 2021, to promote universal values, the E.U. even launched a program called Global Europe Human Rights and Democracy, which was meant to support human rights defenders, the rule of law, and election monitors across the planet. Typically, on the controversial topic of Israel-Palestine, European countries have condemned the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and several have even recognized the (still-to-be-created) state of Palestine.
Semi-socialist, DEI-loving, human-rights-supporting, Israel-skeptical, Europe is everything Donald Trump hates. Think of the E.U., in fact, as the global equivalent of his worst nightmare, a giant liberal arts campus.
No wonder the MAGA crowd has the urge to cut the transatlantic cable as a way of targeting its opponents both at home and abroad.
But wait: The MAGA crowd doesn’t hate Europe quite as thoroughly as it does Columbia University. After all, not all European leaders are on board with social democracy, DEI, human rights, and Palestine. In fact, in some parts of the continent, Trump and Vance are heroes, not zeros.
Hungary’s leader Viktor Orbán, for instance, has long been a friend and inspiration for Donald Trump. After all, he’s managed to translate the illiberalism of Vladimir Putin—anti-democratic, anti-LGBT, uber-nationalist—into a semi-democratic vernacular of great appeal to an American far-right that must negotiate a significantly more complex political landscape than the one that surrounds the Kremlin.
As Putin’s greatest acolyte, Orbán has worked overtime to undermine a common European approach to Ukraine. He initially opposed aid to Ukraine, a stance ultimately overcome by the pressure tactics of other European leaders. He pushed for a watered-down version of the most recent E.U. statement in support of that country, only to watch the other 26 E.U. members pass it without him. And he’s rejected Ukrainian membership in the E.U. Still, with elections scheduled for 2026 and the opposition now outpolling Orbán’s Fidesz party, the days of one man holding the E.U. hostage may soon be over.
While Orbán does have allies, most of them—like AUR in Romania and the National Alliance in Latvia—are sniping from the sidelines as part of the opposition. Several other far-right parties like the ruling Fratelli d’Italia in Italy don’t share Orbán’s odd affection for Putin. But if the AfD in Germany or the National Rally in France were to win enough votes to take over their respective governments, Europe’s political center of gravity could indeed shift.
Such divisions extend to the question of E.U. expansion. Serbia’s pro-Russian slant makes such a move unlikely in the near term and Turkey is too autocratic to qualify, while both Bosnia and Georgia, like Ukraine, are divided. It’s hard to imagine Ukraine itself overcoming its internal divisions—or its war-ravaged economy—to meet Europe’s membership requirements, no matter the general enthusiasm inside that country and elsewhere in Europe for bringing it in from the cold.
Nonetheless, E.U. expansion is what Putin fears the most: a democratic, prosperous union that expands its border with his country and inspires Russian activists with its proclamations of universal values. No small surprise, then, that he’s tried to undermine the E.U. by supporting far-right and Euroskeptical movements. Yet the combination of the war in Ukraine and the reelection of Donald Trump may be undoing all his efforts.
The experience of feeling trapped between two illiberal superpowers has only solidified popular support for the E.U. and its institutions. In a December 2024 poll, trust in the E.U. was at its highest level in 17 years, particularly in countries that are on the waiting list like Albania and Montenegro. Moreover, around 60% of Europeans support providing military aid to Kyiv and future membership for Ukraine.
For increasing numbers of those outside its borders, Europe seems like a beacon of hope: prosperous democracies pushing back against the onslaught of Trump and Putin. And yet, even if Europe manages to stave off the challenges of its home-grown far-right, it may not, in the end, prove to be quite such a beacon. After all, it has its own anti-migrant policies and uses trade agreements to secure access to critical raw materials and punish countries like Indonesia that have the temerity to employ their own mineral wealth to rise higher in the global value chain. Although, unlike Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America, it’s doing its best to shift to a clean-energy economy, it’s done so all too often by dirtying the nests of other countries to get the materials it needs for that shift.
Whatever its resemblance to a liberal arts college, Europe is anything but a non-profit institution and can sometimes seem more like a fortress than a beacon. As was true of those medieval monasteries that preserved the classical learning of the ages but also owned land and serfs, supplied markets with addictive products like chartreuse, and subjected their members to torture and imprisonment, saving civilization can have a darker side.
The International Criminal Court’s arrest of Rodrigo Duterte should be a powerful reminder that justice is possible even in the most unjust of times. Brutal leaders almost always sow the seeds of their own demise. Putin’s risky moves have mobilized virtually all of Europe against him. In antagonizing country after country, Trump is similarly reinforcing liberal sentiment in Canada, in Mexico, and throughout Europe.
If the world had the luxury of time, holing up in the modern equivalent of monasteries and waiting out the barbarians would be a viable strategy. But climate change cares little for extended timelines. And don’t forget the nuclear doomsday clock or the likelihood of another pandemic sweeping across the globe. Meanwhile, Trump and his allies are destroying things at such a pace that the bill for “reconstruction” grows more astronomical by the day.
The gap between the fall of the Roman Empire and the first glimmers of the Renaissance was about 1,000 years. No one has that kind of time anymore. So, while long-term strategies to fight the right are good, those standing up to the bullies also need to act fast and forcefully. The world can’t afford a European retreat into a fortress and the equivalent of monastic solitude. The E.U. must unite with all like-minded countries against the illiberal nationalists who are challenging universal values and international law.
The ICC set a good example with its successful seizure of Duterte. Let’s all hope, for the good of the world, that The Hague will have more global scofflaws in its jail cells—and soon.
Trump is effectively boycotting the world by withdrawing from international institutions and violating international norms. The world should return the favor.
The Trump administration objected so strenuously to a recent speech by South Africa’s ambassador that it expelled him from the United States.
What did Ebrahim Rasool say that was so objectionable? Honestly, the speech he made at a webinar sponsored by a South African research institute was rather boring.
But embedded in his remarks is this observation: “Donald Trump is launching… an assault on incumbency, those who are in power, by mobilizing a supremacism against the incumbency at home.”
Don’t come here, don’t invest here, don’t buy from Tesla or Amazon or any of the other corporations that have kissed Trump’s ring.
This sentence requires a bit of interpretation. The “incumbency” in this case is the federal bureaucracy; the diversity, equity, and Inclusion programs in government and business; anti-racism initiatives more generally; and even elements of the Republican Party that haven’t been Trumpified. “Supremacism,” meanwhile, is white supremacy.
Essentially, the ambassador was pointing out that Trump and MAGA have launched a campaign to advance white supremacy in a country where the civil rights movement achieved enough progress to qualify today as the mainstream.
This isn’t a wild accusation. Among all the racist actions of the current administration, perhaps the most outrageous is Trump’s promise to expedite American citizenship for white Afrikaaners from South Africa that, Trump insists, are experiencing discrimination.
So, while the administration is deporting Black and Brown people by the thousands and trying to claw back birthright citizenship from even more people of color, it is offering to fast-track citizenship for a bunch of white people from Africa. This is not an Onion headline. It’s white nationalism. Even if Afrikaaners were experiencing discrimination in South Africa—which they’re not—privileging their entrance into the United States over Afghans terrified of returning to Taliban rule, Haitians escaping social collapse, or Sudanese fleeing civil war would still count as racist.
Trump’s overtures to the Afrikaaners are also a startling reversion of U.S. policy to the apartheid-friendly positions of the 1980s, when the Reagan administration bucked world opinion by maintaining strong relations with the white minority regime in South Africa. At that time, the anti-apartheid movement in that country was calling on the world to boycott, sanction, and divest from (BDS) South Africa.
Now that a white nationalist has (again) become president of the United States, it’s time to take inspiration from the anti-apartheid movement. As the Trump administration imposes restrictions on travel from 43 countries to the United States, as it slaps tariffs against allies and adversaries alike, as it cozies up to autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as it dismantles federal programs designed to help people in need all over the world, as it withdraws from the Paris climate accord and the United Nations Human Rights Council, as it illegally deports thousands of people and sends some of them to horrific prisons in El Salvador, as it voices support for far-right, neo-Nazi political parties, as it threatens to seize Greenland and absorb Canada, it’s time to call on the world to treat this country as a pariah.
András Schiff has just done that. The great pianist announced this week that he has cancelled upcoming engagements and will not perform in the United States. This comes after he has refused to play in Russia and his native Hungary as well. “Maybe it’s a drop in the ocean; I’m not expecting many musicians to follow,” Schiff said. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s for my own conscience. In history, one has to react or not to react.”
Such a boycott should not be a permanent shunning but a specific response to policies that are in clear violation of international law and universal values of democracy and human rights. Yes, the United States has been in violation of such principles in the past. But this time, the Trump administration has crossed so many lines that it threatens to overthrow the very system of international law.
Once the U.S. government abandons its policies of white nationalism, among other unacceptable positions, it can be welcomed back into the community of nations. Until then: Don’t come here, don’t invest here, don’t buy from Tesla or Amazon or any of the other corporations that have kissed Trump’s ring. Trump is effectively boycotting the world by withdrawing from international institutions and violating international norms. The world should return the favor.
The Trump administration’s indiscriminate tariffs have already prompted a number of countries to respond in kind. Canada has imposed $32.8 billion in tariffs against the United States, while Europe has imposed $28 billion worth. China announced a “15% tariff on U.S. coal and liquefied natural gas, along with a 10% tariff on other products, including crude oil, agricultural machinery, and pickup trucks.”
The residents of these regions are also adjusting their travel plans accordingly, a move that Robert Reich recently endorsed. The Washington Post reports:
Canadians are skipping trips to Disney World and music festivals. Europeans are eschewing U.S. national parks, and Chinese travelers are vacationing in Australia instead. International travel to the United States is expected to slide by 5% this year, contributing to a $64 billion shortfall for the travel industry, according to Tourism Economics. The research firm had originally forecast a 9% increase in foreign travel, but revised its estimate late last month to reflect “polarizing Trump Administration policies and rhetoric.”
Trump’s policies are hurting the United States, from the travel industry and research institutes losing federal grants to the average consumer who is paying for all the tariffs through higher prices.
Some observers recommend that other countries resist the temptation to shoot themselves in the feet by imposing penalties of their own. Economist Dani Rodrik, for instance, suggests that retaliatory tariffs will only hurt the countries imposing them, so the best strategy “is to minimize the damage by staying as far from the bully as you can and waiting for him to punch himself out and crumple in a corner.”
Another option, economist Gabriel Zucman urges, is to apply tariffs to U.S. oligarchs: “If Tesla wants to sell cars in Canada and Mexico then Musk himself, as main shareholder of Tesla, should have to pay tax in Canada and Mexico. Put a wealth tax on him, and condition Tesla’s market access to him paying the tax.”
Changing travel plans, slapping tariffs on U.S. goods, taxing U.S. plutocrats: These are all potentially useful strategies. But they don’t go far enough.
You’ve heard this advice before: Don’t antagonize him, don’t make him lash out, don’t further endanger those around him. But abusive husbands only continue their unacceptable behavior in the face of such coddling.
Many international leaders hope that they can avoid Trump’s wrath by praising him, treating him to military parades when he visits, or at least laying low in the hopes that he won’t direct his wrath in their direction.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for instance, has done his best to curry favor with Trump, particularly after the disastrous White House meeting last month. In this way, he was able to restart U.S. military aid and intelligence-sharing. But he’s still on the verge of being sold out at the bargaining table if and when the Trump administration accepts Russia’s hardline terms for a cease-fire and peace deal.
The alliance against fascism worked in World War II. The anti-apartheid movement was successful. Let us now stand against the Trumps and Putins and Netanyahus of the world.
Still, you might object, no country is powerful enough to put Trump in his place. And those that might have a shot at doing so—China, Russia—are more interested in working with Trump to divide the world into spheres of influences.
But that still leaves a lot of countries that can band together, like an army of small and mid-sized Lilliputians to tie down the power-drunk Gulliver. They simply have to hit the United States where it hurts. Don’t buy products from American companies that support Trump. Don’t allow those businesses to invest in your countries. Reorient your currency transactions away from the dollar.
These measures should not come all at once. Rather, they should be staged strategically to force Trump to back down from his most noxious policies. Name-and-shame tactics don’t work with leaders who have no shame. Grab him by the wallet—it’s the only language he understands.
Will such measures hurt ordinary Americans? Probably. But no more than Trump is already hurting us. The tariffs that countries have imposed in retaliation against Trump’s actions will adversely affect nearly 8 million U.S. workers, the majority in counties that voted for him. But these costs are nothing compared to what the world will suffer as a result of Trump’s cuts in foreign assistance, which will likely kill hundreds of thousands of people a year.
One last recommendation: Don’t cut off all communication with the United States.
In the 1980s, the anti-apartheid campaign fostered considerable contact between the United States and South Africa. But it was a relationship based on solidarity between civil society organizations. My dear friends in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America: Please do not equate Trump with the United States. Yes, a lot of people here voted for him. But they are starting to have buyer’s remorse. Let’s join hands across borders and party lines and say, “We will not tolerate racist bullies.”
The alliance against fascism worked in World War II. The anti-apartheid movement was successful. Let us now stand against the Trumps and Putins and Netanyahus of the world. They are the 1%, and they are vastly outnumbered.
"Under international law, states have a duty to investigate and prosecute war crimes, yet these obligations have been systematically neglected," one of the initiative's founders lamented.
Lawyers from half a dozen countries on Tuesday launched a coalition dedicated to bringing Israelis and dual nationals accused of war crimes in Palestine to justice.
The U.K.-based International Center of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) hosted a launch event in London for the new initiative, called Global 195. ICJP said lawyers will "pursue Israeli war crimes suspects across the world" via arrest warrant applications and the initiation of legal proceedings including private prosecutions against implicated members and veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as well as "figures spanning the entire Israeli military and political chain of command, from senior policymakers to operational personnel, who are directly or indirectly responsible for violations of international law."
Participants include attorneys from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Malaysia, Norway, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, where "advanced preparations have already been made to pursue legal action against British citizens suspected of joining the IDF or committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank."
For the past 18 months, ICJP has been collecting evidence as part of its Justice for Gaza campaign, including 135 eyewitness testimonies backed by open-source intelligence. Documented violations of international law include indiscriminate and disproportionate bombing of civilians, attacks on designated "safe zones,"s airstrikes targeting refugee camps, use of starvation as a weapon of war, and forced displacement.
"The obstruction of international legal institutions in pursuing individuals responsible for war crimes in Palestine, coupled with the failure of national police forces to fulfill their obligations under humanitarian law and universal jurisdiction principles, has allowed impunity for Israeli suspected war criminals to persist," ICJP director Tayab Ali said in a statement.
"Under international law, states have a duty to investigate and prosecute war crimes, yet these obligations have been systematically neglected," Ali added. "The launch of Global 195 is a necessary legal intervention to remedy this failure. By activating domestic legal mechanisms across multiple jurisdictions, we are ensuring that those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza are subject to legal accountability and no longer have anywhere to hide."
Huseyin Disli, vice president of the Worldwide Lawyers Association, noted that "no domestic court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli genocide war criminals, exposing the failure of the international legal order" and called the global legal community "incoherent in its goals."
Israel is currently the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case filed by South Africa, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last November issued arrest warrants over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. However, key nations including the United States—which has not ratified the Rome Statute upon which the ICC is based—have ignored the warrants, and last month the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the tribunal.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. On Tuesday, Israel unilaterally abandoned an eight-week cease-fire and resumed its assault on Gaza, killing more than 400 people including at least 174 children in airstrikes that wiped out entire families.
United Nations experts, international jurists, human rights groups, and others have found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, as well as crimes including indiscriminate and disproportionate killing of civilians, extrajudicial killing, torture, sexual violence including rape, use of starvation as a weapon of war, and forced displacement.
The launch of Global 195 follows the establishment last September of the
Hind Rajab Foundation, a Belgium-based legal group that pursues arrest warrants for alleged Israeli war criminals traveling abroad. The organization is named after a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed—along with six relatives—by Israeli forces in January 2024 while trying to flee to safety in a car. Two paramedics who tried to rescue her were also killed.