The airstrikes on Iran, like the one that destroyed these buildings in Tehran, are dividing the European Union – Image: Jaime León/Agencia EFE/IMAGO
Spain says the US and Israel have breached international law, Germany says it’s no time to lecture allies. Even legal experts are split. Critics warn that reluctance to call out unlawful conduct could come back to bite.
Europe’s streets were full of jubilant Iranians from the diaspora this weekend after US-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The dictator is dead. This is the best day of my life,” one man told DW as he danced through Brussels’ cobbled streets.
Across town, EU officials are no less critical of the Iranian regime. They’ve slapped a slew of sanctions on Tehran over human rights abuses and issued sharp rebukes of its recent retaliatory strikes on Gulf states.
But they now find themselves facing a familiar diplomatic dilemma.
Were the US-Israeli strikes, which according to the Red Crescent have killed at least 555 Iranian civilians in addition to Khamenei, in line with international law and the rules-based order of which the EU so often claims to be a standard-bearer? EU spokespeople spent much of Monday’s press briefing dodging that exact question from journalists.
Donald Trump is due to meet his German counterpart in Washington on Tuesday -Image: Alex Brandon/AP Photo/picture alliance
‘No stupid rules of engagement’
President Donald Trump said Monday the US was “ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror could never obtain a nuclear weapon” and working to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
But Washington has made no attempt to justify its strikes through international frameworks. In fact, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US was acting “regardless of what so-called international institutions say” — with “no stupid rules of engagement.”
He took a jab at US “traditional allies” who “wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.”
That’s a message that will receive very different receptions across a divided EU.
Germany vs. Spain?
Take Berlin, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz has been careful not to criticize Washington.
“Legal assessments under international law will achieve relatively little” with regards to bringing about political change in Iran, he told reporters on Sunday.
“Now is not the moment to lecture our partners and allies. Despite our reservations, we share many of their objectives,” Merz added.
Germany says it’s no time to lecture allies; Spain has been outspoken in its criticism of Israel in particular – Image: dts-Agentur/picture alliance/J. Reina/AFP/Getty Images
Cut to the Spanish capital, and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is striking a different tone.
“We reject the unilateral military action by the United States and Israel, which represents an escalation and contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order,” he wrote on Saturday.
Legal scholars aren’t all on the same page either.
What does international law say?
For Marc Weller, a professor at the University of Cambridge and the director of think tank Chatham House’s international law program, the answer is clear.
“There is no available legal justification for the present, sustained attack on Iran,” he said on Sunday.
“International law does not permit the use of force in response to a hostile overall posture of another state short of an armed attack,” Weller wrote in an analysis paper.
“Neither is the use of force permitted by way of armed retaliation in answer to past provocations. Force is only permissible as a means of last resort, where no other means is available to secure a state from an armed attack,” he said.
Weller said it’s arguably legal to use military force to save a population from its own government, but he said the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown against protesters last month “probably did not yet reach the threshold” to justify foreign intervention.
The US says its strikes on Tehran are aimed at preventing the Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon – Image: Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency/IMAGO
‘Law doesn’t operate in a vacuum’
Rosa Freedman, a professor of law, conflict and global development at the University of Reading, disagrees.
“As a legal scholar, you have to look at this within the broader context. Law doesn’t operate in a vacuum,” she told DW on Monday.
“Iran has been a threat, not only to Israel, but to the entire region for decades now under this regime. And they have been very clear about the threats that they pose and about their ambitions to have nuclear weapons and to use nuclear weapons,” she said.
Freedman said reading legal texts alone could prompt debates on legality.
“But if you look at it within the context of the purpose of that law and the purpose of the United Nations,” she added, “it’s very clear that those [US-Israeli] strikes within the context of Iran developing a nuclear weapon are completely lawful.”
The UN Security Council met on Friday to discuss the US-Israel war with Iran Image: Heather Khalifa/REUTERS
Do US-Israeli airstrikes set a dangerous precedent?
The fact is, this debate will largely remain in the realms of legal textbooks — because it won’t play out in court.
The UN Security Council can issue sanctions or impose no-fly zones in cases of conflict, but Freedman saidthe US can veto any action against it or its allies — just like Russia has prevented action against its war in Ukraine.
Put simply: “More powerful states are more able to do what they want to.”
Chatham House’s Marc Weller says that’s precisely why governments should be more vocal.
“This reluctance to highlight unlawful conduct may encourage a broader sense that the use of force as a means of national policy is becoming acceptable again,” he said.
And for Europe, that’s something that could come back to bite.
“It will not be easily possible to oppose further Russian aggression or potential Chinese expansionism if there are no clear principles left to rely on, without triggering objections of double standards and hypocrisy,” Weller said.
DW.com/NAN 3-3-26
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