An Indictment of the Liberal World Order
Omar El Akkad’s “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” (2025) captures this dilemma viscerally, even if not from a lawyer’s point of view. El Akkad describes watching a genocide unfold on his phone, from his home in Portland, while his children play nearby.
It’s deeply relatable: The author juggles parenting or feeds his dog while watching children lose their lives, and dogs feed on corpses. As the book progresses it becomes clear that his worldview – built on the 1990s promise of “the West” – shatters in real time. I suspect this shattering is familiar to many international lawyers; for those of my own generation, it adds a biographic layer to the current collapse of the discipline. Respectfully to ostriches and owls, many of us feel comfortable in neither position.
El Akkad grew up in Egypt, Qatar, and Canada. Like many immigrants, he was raised on the cultural promise of liberalism. The West offered more than comfort; it offered meaning: freedom, equality, dignity. But as Biden persisted in arming Israel, El Akkad reached a stark realisation: the promise of a liberal world-based order was a lie from the get-go. He wants to turn his back on American liberalism completely. But it isn’t clear where, if anywhere, he can go.
The title of the book may suggest redemption – a belief that the arc of history bends towards justice after all. But El Akkad’s outlook is grimmer. “One day, everyone will have always been against this”: not because the truth will have been revealed, and solidarity will have followed. But because, by that future, “being against this” will be free for the taking, no price attached. The destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza will have become complete. Analogically, we may find, with Andreas Malm, that “it’s too late” for the climate, too.
El Akkad’s is a profound indictment – not only of U.S. foreign policy, but of the liberal legal consciousness. When we translate it to the everyday of international lawyers, we may find that it is equally directed at ostriches and owls. Both groups somehow claim the mantle of international justice. But both are blind to our own complicity. Often, we are animated more by our self-images and careers, such as they are, than by the real-world consequences of our work.
The Second Collapse
In early 2024, when South Africa brought its genocide case before the #ICJ, the whole world was watching. Representatives of a post-apartheid state stood before judges and said: look, this is what Israel is doing with your weapons and your money. Stop it, if the liberal rule-based order means anything at all. It was a historic moment, and it failed to deliver the needed remedy.
More than a year later, starvation in Gaza is ever more severe. This isn’t a “liberal genocide” marked by denial. It is an open commitment to annihilation. This is the targeting by drone strike of a vessel carrying humanitarian aid, faraway from the battle, in international waters, amid no real international outcry. All masks are off. Just last week, the Israeli Cabinet approved “conquering” Gaza and measures to implement its plans for the “voluntary departure” of Gaza’s population. Many are now turning their heads to Riad for winds of change. Trump has now left the Middle East, and according to Israel’s intense air force campaign currently underway, the plan of ethnic cleansing may have entered a new operational stage.
To be sure, this is not the first time international law is collapsing. The League of Nations (1920) and the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) marked the first wave of modern internationalism. But with the outbreak of World War II, they were quickly swept aside by #fascism, war, and #genocide. As we all know, the second rise came after 1945: the UN Charter, the Genocide Convention – institutions forged from the ashes of that time. Alongside them, with the help of Western superpowers, Israel was established. Today, Israel is an agent of annihilation – of Palestinians and of the rules themselves. But it is hardly alone in dismantling international norms. The 1951 Refugee Convention, another pillar of the post-WWII order, is being eviscerated by many a “Western” government. We are clearly witnessing a second unravelling.
