August 29, 2026
Melanie O’Brien
The Trump administration has consistently viewed itself as being above international law. Not only does it claim international law doesn’t apply to the United States, it has imposed sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Melanie O’Brien
The Trump administration has consistently viewed itself as being above international law. Not only does it claim international law doesn’t apply to the United States, it has imposed sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
With these views, the Trump
administration is setting a dangerous precedent.
Six months ago, the US and Israel started a war against Iran that legal scholars agree was a blatant violation of international law. The US breached a fundamental prohibition on the use of force or threat of force, found in Article 2 of the UN Charter.
Since then, the way the US has fought the war has also come under scrutiny. Its actions in Iran must be monitored, investigated and prosecuted if the evidence warrants it. This is a crucial moment for international law in the face of concerted efforts to undermine and discredit it.
The laws of war
The body of law that applies in conflicts is called international humanitarian law, or sometimes simply the laws of war.
International humanitarian law is designed to limit the means and methods of warfare to prevent the meaningless suffering of combatants and civilians. Many (but not all) violations of these laws are known as war crimes.
The idea behind this body of law is to humanise war. As far back as 500 BCE, Sun Tzu believed it was better to capture a state and an army intact, rather than destroy them.
Given this, international humanitarian law prohibits attacks on civilians and civilian objects. A clear distinction is made between civilians and combatants, and between civilian and military objects.
Civilian objects include schools, hospitals, bridges, power plants, agriculture infrastructure, dams and water treatment plants.
Under the law, militaries must also take “all feasible precautions” to minimise loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects. This entails verifying that targets are indeed military objectives.
A “dual-use” object, which has both a civilian and military purpose, can be considered a legitimate military target but only if it makes “an effective contribution to military action” and destroying or disabling it will offer a “definite military advantage”.
An attack on a dual-use site is prohibited if it would cause disproportionate damage that seriously impacts civilians.
For example, a bridge could have a military purpose if an army crosses it to launch an attack. However, because a bridge is also inherently civilian in nature – and damaging it could significantly impact civilians – a strike on a bridge would likely constitute a war crime.
Indeed, the law says if there is any doubt about a site, it should be presumed to be a protected civilian object.
War without restraint
US President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to destroy bridges, power plants, oil wells and desalination plants demonstrate a clear willingness to violate these laws and commit war crimes. In fact, Trump has threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilisation.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has likewise asserted the US prerogative to fight wars unencumbered by legal constraints, or “stupid rules of engagement”, as he calls them.
Hegseth has gone so far as to state there will be “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies”.
Granting quarter means to not attack a person who is no longer taking part in combat, for example, due to injury. Ordering denial of quarter, as Hegseth has done, is expressly prohibited under the laws of war. Violating this rule is a war crime.
Minab school attack
Let’s examine a few specific attacks over the past six months.
On the opening day of the war, a girls’ primary school was bombed in the southern town of Minab. It was Saturday morning, a school day for Iranian children. At least 156 people were killed, including 120 children.
A school is undoubtedly a civilian object. As teachers and students were present, it was also an attack on civilians. This means that on face value, the attack was unlawful.
The evidence collected since the attack also suggests a guided Tomahawk missile was used in the bombing. The US has these in its arsenal; Iran does not.
The school was located next to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) buildings, which were also struck in the attack. This may indicate the bombing of the school was a tragic error of mistaken targeting.
The Trump administration has not accepted responsibility for the bombing. An initial US assessment, however, found US forces were “likely” behind it and cited outdated targeting information.
However, the US has apparently still not conducted a comprehensive intelligence assessment, nor has it released its full investigation into the incident.
The US could argue the school was hit by mistake when it was targeting the IRGC buildings, therefore it is not liable for attacking a civilian object. However, it seems likely the US didn’t take the legally required necessary precautions and target verifications to protect civilians, which are certainly a violation of the laws of war.
Attacking water facilities
In June, two water storage reservoirs were damaged in strikes near the Strait of Hormuz. These facilities provided water for 20,000 civilians.
It is unclear whether the US intentionally struck the reservoirs. However, there are signs the attack was deliberate. Independent experts have described the weapon used in the strike as a precision-guided bomb and said the remoteness of the water facilities also indicated a precision strike.
Desalination plants have also been targeted by both the US and Iran during the war.
Desalination plants and water storage facilities are essential for providing fresh water to the civilian population in the area. What makes these attacks even more serious is the fact the Middle East is an extremely arid region that frequently experiences water shortages.
Attacking these civilian objects, therefore, seriously impacts people’s access to water. As such, it would qualify as a war crime.
Justice for war crimes
If the US and Iran are not going to investigate and prosecute their own personnel, can the International Criminal Court step in?
Unfortunately, the ICC has no jurisdiction in this war, as neither the US nor Iran is a party to the court. This means the only remaining option is another country investigating and prosecuting individuals in its own domestic court. However, these types of cases are complex and would necessitate the indictment of Americans to be tried abroad, which would very difficult to achieve and politically unlikely.
This is why full investigations and prosecutions into military actions in the war should occur in both the US and Iran. Accountability is key to ensure justice for those who committed crimes, but also to help deter future crimes.
Tarique Niazi
( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Pakistan’s Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir’s trip to Iran on August 24 has ignited new hope for a negotiated end to the the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. He arrived in Tehran with “fresh proposals” to end the current deadlock between Iran and the United Sates and, more importantly, to restart the stalled talks between the two. Munir undertook the trip with the blessings of the top leadership in the United States. Although Islamabad and Washington have been in “constant” conversations as to how to resolve the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Field Marshal Munir spoke with President Trump as recently as a week ago, which resulted in his hurriedly planned trip to Tehran.
Prior to the Munir-Trump call, Pakistan invited Iran’s foreign minister and the speaker of parliament, who are the chief negotiators on the Iran-U.S. conflict, for talks that Tehran agreed to “at an appropriate time.” The Iranians’ proposed visit to Islamabad was still in the works, when the Iranian foreign minister twice spoke to Munir, respectively on August 19 and August 22. On Sunday, August 23, a number of news outlets in Pakistan reported that Munir would instead arrive in Tehran on Monday.
Both Iran and Pakistan presented the trip as if it were a routine bilateral affair. But it is not. Field Marshal Munir has nothing to do with “routine bilateral affairs,” as Pakistan has vast diplomatic infrastructure to address such matters.
Pakistan’s military leadership became actively involved in the continuing Middle East conflict in February, when Israel and the United States launched joint strikes against Iran. This involvement was not Pakistan’s choice. Instead, Pakistan’s good offices were sought to defuse the conflict. This is how Pakistan’s prime minister and its chief of defense forces came to play the role of principal mediators.
Pakistan has since hosted landmark talks between Iran and the United States in Islamabad, which were led by the Vice President J.D. Vance and Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Bagher Ghalibaf. These marathon talks, which lasted 22 consecutive hours, were landmark in the sense that they were, for the first time, held face-to-face between two adversaries with decades of mutual antagonism. Pakistan again hosted the second round of these talks at the Burgenstock resort in Switzerland, which too was headed by Vance.
The Switzerland talks followed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (IMOU) that was respectively signed by President Trump, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and cosigned by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan. Later, talking to the media, Trump defended the signing of the document saying: “The one president I did not want to be was the late great Herbert Hoover.” He was referring to the dire global depression that occurred on Herbert Hoover’s watch and that Trump feared could recur if the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continued.
Munir’s travel to Iran is part of the persistent U.S. efforts to keep the Strait open. What makes his visit urgent is the urging of the United States and its regional partners, especially Saudi Arabia whose transit trade through the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz has come to an almost complete halt, to help revive the stalled talks around the IMOU.
What are, then, the “fresh proposals” he is carrying to the Iranians to have them agree to reopening the Strait? More specifically, what is “fresh” about the fresh proposals? What’s new is that the reopening of the Strait now overshadows all other issues that the United States initially set out to negotiate with Iran, including the headline issue of denuclearization.
Vice President Vance said as recently as on August 13 that the administration’s “goal number one” is to “keep oil and gasoline cheap for Americans all over our country” and that preventing Iran from never getting a nuclear weapon is secondary to this goal. Munir’s “fresh proposals” echo Vance. The two talk to each other a lot. Vice President Vance confirmed this on June 21 at the Burgenstock Resort in Switzerland, where he was leading the United Staes at the four-way talks hosted by Pakistan. He said he had two favorite people with whom he would have long and frequent conversations, one Indian and the other Pakistani. The “Indian” was his reference to his wife Usha Vance who is an American of Indian descent, not an Indian, and she has no rival in Pakistan for her husband’s attention as the vice president jokingly implied. Since the start of the Middle East conflict in February, Vance said, he had been speaking with Munir more often than any other person. Vance channels President Trump whose singular focus is now to get the Iranians to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a focus that sits atop Munir’s “fresh proposals.”
On the other hand, Iranians know why they have shut down the Strait and why they will reopen it: to end the war and wring concessions out of Washington. This knowledge seems to make them bear any hardship, no matter how severe. So, what does the United States have to offer, beyond promising retribution to Iran in exchange for reopening the Strait and is that offer included in Munir’s “fresh proposals?” Munir’s proposals indeed include economic incentives for Iran to return to the basic principles agreed in the 14-point IMOU, although details of his proposals have been kept under wraps.
Of immediate concern to Iran is an end to economic sanctions and the unfreezing of Iranian assets in exchange for reopening the Strait. The United States is more willing to agree to this arrangement as the cost of the Strait’s closure keeps revealing itself in market fluctuations and price increases. Sanctions relief is nothing new. Both Iran and the United States have been visiting this issue for years now. The only difference that has since occurred is in the “exchange value” of sanctions relief. Prior to now, sanctions relief was for nuclear non-proliferation; now it is for the reopening of the Strait that has morphed from being a “means” to becoming an “end.”
The reopening of the Strait is now the number one U.S. goal. The remainder of the “political” agenda that bears upon the cessation of hostilities in the region, and the restarting of talks on nuclear nonproliferation, can wait as a “secondary” objective. Both Iran and the United States seem to have a lot of impetus to accomplishing these goals and both trust that Pakistan’s mediation can make it happen. This is Pakistan’s Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir’s third visit to Iran since February. The Trump administration is hoping that this third time’s the charm.
Six months ago, the US and Israel started a war against Iran that legal scholars agree was a blatant violation of international law. The US breached a fundamental prohibition on the use of force or threat of force, found in Article 2 of the UN Charter.
Since then, the way the US has fought the war has also come under scrutiny. Its actions in Iran must be monitored, investigated and prosecuted if the evidence warrants it. This is a crucial moment for international law in the face of concerted efforts to undermine and discredit it.
The laws of war
The body of law that applies in conflicts is called international humanitarian law, or sometimes simply the laws of war.
International humanitarian law is designed to limit the means and methods of warfare to prevent the meaningless suffering of combatants and civilians. Many (but not all) violations of these laws are known as war crimes.
The idea behind this body of law is to humanise war. As far back as 500 BCE, Sun Tzu believed it was better to capture a state and an army intact, rather than destroy them.
Given this, international humanitarian law prohibits attacks on civilians and civilian objects. A clear distinction is made between civilians and combatants, and between civilian and military objects.
Civilian objects include schools, hospitals, bridges, power plants, agriculture infrastructure, dams and water treatment plants.
Under the law, militaries must also take “all feasible precautions” to minimise loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects. This entails verifying that targets are indeed military objectives.
A “dual-use” object, which has both a civilian and military purpose, can be considered a legitimate military target but only if it makes “an effective contribution to military action” and destroying or disabling it will offer a “definite military advantage”.
An attack on a dual-use site is prohibited if it would cause disproportionate damage that seriously impacts civilians.
For example, a bridge could have a military purpose if an army crosses it to launch an attack. However, because a bridge is also inherently civilian in nature – and damaging it could significantly impact civilians – a strike on a bridge would likely constitute a war crime.
Indeed, the law says if there is any doubt about a site, it should be presumed to be a protected civilian object.
War without restraint
US President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to destroy bridges, power plants, oil wells and desalination plants demonstrate a clear willingness to violate these laws and commit war crimes. In fact, Trump has threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilisation.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has likewise asserted the US prerogative to fight wars unencumbered by legal constraints, or “stupid rules of engagement”, as he calls them.
Hegseth has gone so far as to state there will be “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies”.
Granting quarter means to not attack a person who is no longer taking part in combat, for example, due to injury. Ordering denial of quarter, as Hegseth has done, is expressly prohibited under the laws of war. Violating this rule is a war crime.
Minab school attack
Let’s examine a few specific attacks over the past six months.
On the opening day of the war, a girls’ primary school was bombed in the southern town of Minab. It was Saturday morning, a school day for Iranian children. At least 156 people were killed, including 120 children.
A school is undoubtedly a civilian object. As teachers and students were present, it was also an attack on civilians. This means that on face value, the attack was unlawful.
The evidence collected since the attack also suggests a guided Tomahawk missile was used in the bombing. The US has these in its arsenal; Iran does not.
The school was located next to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) buildings, which were also struck in the attack. This may indicate the bombing of the school was a tragic error of mistaken targeting.
The Trump administration has not accepted responsibility for the bombing. An initial US assessment, however, found US forces were “likely” behind it and cited outdated targeting information.
However, the US has apparently still not conducted a comprehensive intelligence assessment, nor has it released its full investigation into the incident.
The US could argue the school was hit by mistake when it was targeting the IRGC buildings, therefore it is not liable for attacking a civilian object. However, it seems likely the US didn’t take the legally required necessary precautions and target verifications to protect civilians, which are certainly a violation of the laws of war.
Attacking water facilities
In June, two water storage reservoirs were damaged in strikes near the Strait of Hormuz. These facilities provided water for 20,000 civilians.
It is unclear whether the US intentionally struck the reservoirs. However, there are signs the attack was deliberate. Independent experts have described the weapon used in the strike as a precision-guided bomb and said the remoteness of the water facilities also indicated a precision strike.
Desalination plants have also been targeted by both the US and Iran during the war.
Desalination plants and water storage facilities are essential for providing fresh water to the civilian population in the area. What makes these attacks even more serious is the fact the Middle East is an extremely arid region that frequently experiences water shortages.
Attacking these civilian objects, therefore, seriously impacts people’s access to water. As such, it would qualify as a war crime.
Justice for war crimes
If the US and Iran are not going to investigate and prosecute their own personnel, can the International Criminal Court step in?
Unfortunately, the ICC has no jurisdiction in this war, as neither the US nor Iran is a party to the court. This means the only remaining option is another country investigating and prosecuting individuals in its own domestic court. However, these types of cases are complex and would necessitate the indictment of Americans to be tried abroad, which would very difficult to achieve and politically unlikely.
This is why full investigations and prosecutions into military actions in the war should occur in both the US and Iran. Accountability is key to ensure justice for those who committed crimes, but also to help deter future crimes.
Tarique Niazi
( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Pakistan’s Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir’s trip to Iran on August 24 has ignited new hope for a negotiated end to the the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. He arrived in Tehran with “fresh proposals” to end the current deadlock between Iran and the United Sates and, more importantly, to restart the stalled talks between the two. Munir undertook the trip with the blessings of the top leadership in the United States. Although Islamabad and Washington have been in “constant” conversations as to how to resolve the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Field Marshal Munir spoke with President Trump as recently as a week ago, which resulted in his hurriedly planned trip to Tehran.
Prior to the Munir-Trump call, Pakistan invited Iran’s foreign minister and the speaker of parliament, who are the chief negotiators on the Iran-U.S. conflict, for talks that Tehran agreed to “at an appropriate time.” The Iranians’ proposed visit to Islamabad was still in the works, when the Iranian foreign minister twice spoke to Munir, respectively on August 19 and August 22. On Sunday, August 23, a number of news outlets in Pakistan reported that Munir would instead arrive in Tehran on Monday.
Both Iran and Pakistan presented the trip as if it were a routine bilateral affair. But it is not. Field Marshal Munir has nothing to do with “routine bilateral affairs,” as Pakistan has vast diplomatic infrastructure to address such matters.
Pakistan’s military leadership became actively involved in the continuing Middle East conflict in February, when Israel and the United States launched joint strikes against Iran. This involvement was not Pakistan’s choice. Instead, Pakistan’s good offices were sought to defuse the conflict. This is how Pakistan’s prime minister and its chief of defense forces came to play the role of principal mediators.
Pakistan has since hosted landmark talks between Iran and the United States in Islamabad, which were led by the Vice President J.D. Vance and Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Bagher Ghalibaf. These marathon talks, which lasted 22 consecutive hours, were landmark in the sense that they were, for the first time, held face-to-face between two adversaries with decades of mutual antagonism. Pakistan again hosted the second round of these talks at the Burgenstock resort in Switzerland, which too was headed by Vance.
The Switzerland talks followed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (IMOU) that was respectively signed by President Trump, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and cosigned by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan. Later, talking to the media, Trump defended the signing of the document saying: “The one president I did not want to be was the late great Herbert Hoover.” He was referring to the dire global depression that occurred on Herbert Hoover’s watch and that Trump feared could recur if the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continued.
Munir’s travel to Iran is part of the persistent U.S. efforts to keep the Strait open. What makes his visit urgent is the urging of the United States and its regional partners, especially Saudi Arabia whose transit trade through the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz has come to an almost complete halt, to help revive the stalled talks around the IMOU.
What are, then, the “fresh proposals” he is carrying to the Iranians to have them agree to reopening the Strait? More specifically, what is “fresh” about the fresh proposals? What’s new is that the reopening of the Strait now overshadows all other issues that the United States initially set out to negotiate with Iran, including the headline issue of denuclearization.
Vice President Vance said as recently as on August 13 that the administration’s “goal number one” is to “keep oil and gasoline cheap for Americans all over our country” and that preventing Iran from never getting a nuclear weapon is secondary to this goal. Munir’s “fresh proposals” echo Vance. The two talk to each other a lot. Vice President Vance confirmed this on June 21 at the Burgenstock Resort in Switzerland, where he was leading the United Staes at the four-way talks hosted by Pakistan. He said he had two favorite people with whom he would have long and frequent conversations, one Indian and the other Pakistani. The “Indian” was his reference to his wife Usha Vance who is an American of Indian descent, not an Indian, and she has no rival in Pakistan for her husband’s attention as the vice president jokingly implied. Since the start of the Middle East conflict in February, Vance said, he had been speaking with Munir more often than any other person. Vance channels President Trump whose singular focus is now to get the Iranians to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a focus that sits atop Munir’s “fresh proposals.”
On the other hand, Iranians know why they have shut down the Strait and why they will reopen it: to end the war and wring concessions out of Washington. This knowledge seems to make them bear any hardship, no matter how severe. So, what does the United States have to offer, beyond promising retribution to Iran in exchange for reopening the Strait and is that offer included in Munir’s “fresh proposals?” Munir’s proposals indeed include economic incentives for Iran to return to the basic principles agreed in the 14-point IMOU, although details of his proposals have been kept under wraps.
Of immediate concern to Iran is an end to economic sanctions and the unfreezing of Iranian assets in exchange for reopening the Strait. The United States is more willing to agree to this arrangement as the cost of the Strait’s closure keeps revealing itself in market fluctuations and price increases. Sanctions relief is nothing new. Both Iran and the United States have been visiting this issue for years now. The only difference that has since occurred is in the “exchange value” of sanctions relief. Prior to now, sanctions relief was for nuclear non-proliferation; now it is for the reopening of the Strait that has morphed from being a “means” to becoming an “end.”
The reopening of the Strait is now the number one U.S. goal. The remainder of the “political” agenda that bears upon the cessation of hostilities in the region, and the restarting of talks on nuclear nonproliferation, can wait as a “secondary” objective. Both Iran and the United States seem to have a lot of impetus to accomplishing these goals and both trust that Pakistan’s mediation can make it happen. This is Pakistan’s Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir’s third visit to Iran since February. The Trump administration is hoping that this third time’s the charm.
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