Every generation says that things were better back in their day.
In my case – it’s true.
I’m in my mid-forties, so I grew up between the falls of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Twin Towers in 2001. To spend these formative dozen years in the West was to witness the global spread of liberal values, the retreat of autocracy, and a decline in inter-state conflict. It was not, of course, the ‘end of history’, as Francis Fukuyama infamously claimed in 1999. But it was a moment of relative peace for the world, and I’m sure that growing up in this era shaped my generation’s expectations of how the world should operate. Recently, I’ve been wondering if it’s why I find today’s world so shocking.
To recap my glorious teenage years: the liberation of Soviet Europe was underway following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Norwegians (with some help from Bill Clinton) brokered the Oslo Accords in 1993, which briefly injected hope into a Middle East Peace Process. The Good Friday agreement was signed in 1998, bringing an end to the violence in Northern Ireland. Democracies grew in number all around the world, as autocracy retreated. Russia had been weakened by the loss of the Soviet empire, and China was ‘biding its time and hiding its strength’. Vladimir Putin was an unremarkable, mid-ranking intelligence officer, and Xi Jinping was a steady hand in various local leadership roles; Donald Trump was just a real estate dealer and occasional boxing promoter.
Not only did we live in a world with more peace, but we saw greater ambition for justice. The early 1990s witnessed criminal trials in Latin America and Eastern Europe against the autocratic regimes that had fallen. The international community sought justice for atrocities in Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia using novel, ad hoc criminal tribunals established by the UN. Having walked free from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela’s South Africa instituted a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995 to address the excesses of the apartheid era, featuring significant involvement of victims, and opportunities for forgiveness.
The Masterplan
This ‘wave of justice’ was the highpoint of the Transitional Justice movement, culminating in the signing of the Rome Statute in 1998, which created a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague. This promised an end to impunity for individuals and an international consensus on justice for the most serious crimes.
Not only was the world seeking justice for atrocities, it seemed more willing to stop or prevent them: in 1999, a UK-led Western alliance launched air strikes to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end his military campaign against the Kosovo Liberation Army, which had involved widespread ethnic cleansing. Further successful military operations in Sierra Leone and East Timor seemed to validate the intervention of Western powers to avoid situations like in Rwanda ever happening again.
To a British teenager, giddy with the rise of ‘Cool Britannia’ and the UK’s youthful and charismatic new Prime Minister, the world seemed to promise a brighter, more peaceful future. As my generation surveys the world in 2024, it’s no wonder that we feel a sense not only of disappointment, but maybe even betrayal.
Just to take the last few years: Russia has launched a war of aggression on Ukraine; China threatens regional stability by promising ‘reunification’ with Taiwan; a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians seems more distant than ever, as the October 7 attacks has led to devastation we haven’t seen in a generation. The world is so chaotic that the extreme violence in Sudan, including ethnic violence in Darfur, barely merits a mention. Meanwhile the UN has been significantly weakened, with the Security Council paralysed by the permanent parties’ refusal to work together.
Where Did It All Go Wrong?
So what happened to all the hope and ambition that the Transitional Justice generation created?
Sadly, the optimism surrounding ICC’s creation dissipated quickly. The 9/11 attacks brought forth a global focus on security over justice. The Court acquired a reputation for targeting African countries, imposing legalistic, Western notions of justice onto complex local conflicts. The track record for the ICC in terms of convictions is undeniably bad – only five convictions for core ‘international’ crimes (such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide) have been secured in more than 20 years.
Then there are the cases where intervention never materialised: in 2007 the Sri Lankan armed forces crushed the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Elam (LTTE, or ‘Tamil Tigers’) at a vast cost to the civilian population; in 2022 UN Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet reported credible evidence of atrocities in the Xinjiang province of China, possibly constituting crimes against humanity; in 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) committed a savage genocide of the Yazidi minority population as part of their conquest of northern Iraq. Despite their appalling nature, none of these cases translated into meaningful international justice processes.
The ICC, hobbled by US criticism, meagre international funding, and a decaying international consensus, struggles on. However, it can only intervene in situations where the local legal judicial system does not have the will or the means to take legal proceedings against the guilty parties, and in areas where it has jurisdiction via the Rome Statute (to which none of China, Russia, Israel, the US, Syria or Iraq are signatories). The alternative is intervention via resolution of the UN Security Council, which has been hampered by the lack of consensus between its permanent members.
It’s Gettin’ Better (Man!!)
Just recently, however, the focus on international justice feels like it may be returning. The international lawyers of The Hague are busier than ever, with both the ICC and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) making high-profile interventions, arising from sometimes surprising sources. In 2023 the ICC issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian commissioner for children’s rights, alleging responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children (a war crime); more than 40 states referred the Russia’s actions to the ICC. This was followed in 2024 by the announcement by ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan KC that he was seeking warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and his Defence Secretary Yoav Gallant, along with a number of senior Hamas figures; these warrants have now been confirmed (although two of the Hamas leaders are already dead).
In December 2023 South Africa, a leader of the 1990s Transitional Justice movement, referred the actions of the Israeli security forces in Gaza to the ICJ, which issued provisional measures ordering Israel not to conduct any acts that may amount to genocide, among other acts contrary to the 1948 Genocide Convention. South Africa’s case was supported by a range of states including Spain, Colombia and Ireland.
In a further ICJ advisory ruling from 2024, the ICJ declared that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was unlawful. The Court added that Israel’s legislation and measures violate the international prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid. The ICJ mandated Israel to end its occupation, dismantle its settlements, provide full reparations to Palestinian victims and facilitate the return of displaced people.
These follow the 2017 ICJ Case of The Gambia v. Myanmar concerning Myanmar’s alleged violations of the Genocide Convention against the ethnic Rohingya population in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State; in July 2024 the ICJ ruled that Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and the Maldives were allowed to intervene in Gambia’s case. The ICC also recognised that they had jurisdiction over the forcible displacement of the Rohingya by virtue of part of the crimes taking place in a state party to the Rome Statute (Bangladesh).
Meanwhile, following a peace deal between the government and armed groups in 2016, Colombia is forging ahead with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) process. This has shown that there is still the potential for national consensus over the importance of Transitional Justice and a commitment to involving victims, perpetrators and communities in national healing. It’s almost like the 1990s all over again.
Fade In-Out
However, despite the return of Oasis and baggy jeans (thank goodness), we are not living in the 1990s anymore.
On one hand, these recent judgements of the ICJ and ICC might reflect a returning global expectation that justice must be sought for the most serious crimes. Countries from the Global South, having seen the Western-led era impose international justice on their domestic conflicts for years, want international justice to be genuinely impartial. At the very least, it suggests they want acknowledgement of wrongdoing, even if justice is never fully served.
On the other hand, the prospects for international intervention seem more distant than ever. China’s rise has altered the global consensus around the universal values of the post-World War II era, prioritising the rights of states to dictate everything from their own development model to their approach to human rights.
In the case of the Yezidi genocide, prospects for justice may have actually retreated, with the UN-sponsored mission to collect evidence of international crimes (UNITAD) closing down in September 2024. Russia, having stymied the attempts of the UNSC to refer Bashar al-Assad’s actions in Syria to the ICC, continues to prop up his brutal reign. Vladimir Putin, despite having an open ICC warrant against him, brazenly travelled to Mongolia in September 2024, in defiance of Mongolia’s obligation to arrest him on arrival.
Even in the US, there has been strident criticism of the ICC warrants against Israeli leaders, with one of Donald Trump’s foreign policy advisors saying the US should slap sanctions on ICC officials who seek an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. The prospect of a second Trump term makes the US’s commitment to international justice – at least via multilateral mechanisms such as international courts – open to question.
Don’t Look Back in Anger
The UK has been a leader in international justice for many years, supporting judicial mechanisms in Sierra Leone, Iraq and elsewhere. The incoming Labour government, with lawyers occupying roles of Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, quickly removed the UK’s objection to ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, suggesting that ‘progressive realism’ will involve support for international law. It has also proposed British-Nigerian lawyer Dapo Akande join the bench as a judge at the ICJ in 2026.
Importantly, post-Brexit Britain needs friends around the world. Rising powers with large Muslim populations like Malaysia and Indonesia have expressed their displeasure at the West’s inaction over Israel’s actions in Gaza. The parts of the world that see the appeal of China’s alternative to the American-led global order may be waiting to see which way the UK will go.
As for me – perhaps it’s time for my generation to grow up. Our parents were born into a world engulfed in war, and our children will come of age in an era of global contestation, growing violence, and the existential threat of climate change. Perhaps it was only ever us that believed that the Geneva Conventions and the international rules-based order would live forever.
Still, as we take our turn to rise into positions of influence, I hope we will remember our youthful dreams of justice and peace, and do what we can to make them real, whilst acknowledging the world is as it is. Wilton Park – which did its bit to promote a peaceful and democratic post-WWII order – is one place to do just that.