Quotes About International Law

#1. The sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions.

George Soros

#2. The G7 and former G8 group has always viewed itself as a community of values, the annexation of Crimea, which is a blatant violation of the principles of international law, and the events in eastern Ukraine are serious violations of these common values.

Angela Merkel

#3. As a matter of international law, the United States is in an armed conflict with al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, and associated forces, in response to the 9/11 attacks, and we may also use force consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense.

John O. Brennan

#4. It was during the Reagan years that defiance of international law and the U.N. Charter became entirely open.

Noam Chomsky

#5. Some international law specialists compare the invasion of Iraq to the 'crimes against the peace' for which Nazi leaders were indicted at Nuremberg.

Noam Chomsky

#6. First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights.

George William Norris

#7. Any use of chemical weapons, by anyone, under any circumstances, is a grave violation of the 1925 Protocol and other relevant rules of customary international law.

Ban Ki-moon

#8. I support this proposal and agree with this great and important initiative to abolish militarism and war. I will continue to speak out for an end to the institution of militarism and war and for institutions built on international law and human rights and nonviolent conflict resolution.

Mairead Corrigan

#9. If we speak calmly, in a businesslike fashion, let me draw your attention to the fact that Russia supplies arms to the legitimate government of Syria in full compliance with the norms of international law. We are not breaching any rules and norms.

Vladimir Putin

#10. Insofar as international law is observed, it provides us with stability and order and with a means of predicting the behavior of those with whom we have reciprocal legal obligations.

J. William Fulbright

#11. No other country in the world disenfranchises people who are released from prison in a manner even remotely resembling the United States. In fact, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has charged that U.S. disenfranchisement policies are discriminatory and violate international law.

Michelle Alexander

#12. Body-waxing as a torture-slash-interrogation tactic is illegal under international law. FALSE. (But if the yells coming from Tina Walters's bathroom were any indication, it totally should be true.)

Ally Carter

#13. I'm telling Palestinians, "Don't use violence." We're going to use the civilized means of international law to achieve our goals, our independence, our freedom.

Saeb Erekat

#14. It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. If they did so, they couldn't be reelected.

Jimmy Carter

#15. Under international law, the responsibility for protecting civilians in conflict falls on the belligerents. Under military occupation, responsibility for the welfare of the population falls on the occupiers.

Kofi Annan

#16. Attempts to settle crises by unilateral sanctions outside the framework of U.N. Security Council decisions threaten international peace and stability. Such attempts are counterproductive and contradict the norms and principles of international law.

Sergei Lavrov

#17. International Law has never stopped men in their pursuit of conquest or revenge.

Allen Drury

#18. Governments are mandated by international law to protect people from genocide.

Bianca Jagger

#19. On free commerce, open communication, shared knowledge, secular politics, religious coexistence, international law, and diplomatic immunity.

Jack Weatherford

#20. It is a rule of international law that weapons and methods of warfare which do not discriminate between combatants and civilians should never be used.

Sean MacBride

#21. [International law] doesn't show what the Constitution originally meant, and it doesn't show what is fundamentally important to Americans today. It shows what's fundamentally important to somebody else today.

Antonin Scalia

#22. Both President Obama and I shared the conviction that territorial and maritime disputes in the Asia Pacific region should be settled peacefully based on international law. We affirm that arbitration is an open, friendly and peaceful approach to seeking a just and durable solution.

Benigno Aquino III

#23. The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of
blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute
contempt for the concept of international law.

Harold Pinter

#24. [...]if Nazi Germany had not invaded other countries but had simply sought to eliminate the entire Jewish population within its own territorial borders, this would not have constituted a violation of international law, as incredible as this now seems.

Mark Gibney

#25. Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law, democracy, security and sustainable economic and environmental development.

Anna Lindh

#26. We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law, Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli or Christ, it's here. And the hour's late. And the war's begun. And we are out here, and the city is there, all wrapped up in its own coat of a thousand colors.

Ray Bradbury

#27. It will not do to say that international law is the enemy of the Jewish people, since the Jewish people surely did not as a whole oppose the Nuremburg trials, or the development of human rights law.

Judith Butler

#28. It was Francisco de Vitoria, a Catholic priest and professor, who earned the title of father of international law.

Thomas E. Woods Jr.

#29. It is not love, or morality, or international law that determines the outcome of world affairs, but the changing distribution of organized force

William Woodruff

#30. I am still profoundly troubled by the war in Nicaragua. The United States launched a covert war against another nation in violation of international law, a war that was wrong and immoral.

Bianca Jagger

#31. If you say that your national law allows you to do something, it is fine as long as you do this inside your own territory. As long as you go international, you really have to be sure that there is an international law which you respect and which you follow.

Sergei Lavrov

#32. It's never acceptable to target civilians. It violates the Geneva Accords, it violates the international law of war and it violates all principles of morality.

Alan Dershowitz

#33. Palestine is occupied land, and under international law, the Palestinians have the legal right to resist this occupation by any and all means. This may make busses, restaurants, discos-where Israeli military congregate, lawful targets.

Enver Masud

#34. The conflict in the Middle East needs to be solved for the same reasons. It is necessary to reach a two-states solution, built on international law, for sustainable peace and development, and it can only be achieved through joint efforts by the international community.

Anna Lindh

#35. The only way out [of international dictatorship] is to place international law above governments, which means [ ... ] that there must be a parliament for making it, and that parliament must be constituted by means of worldwide elections in which all nations will take part.

Albert Camus

#36. Claims of right and insistence upon obligations may depend upon treaty stipulations, or upon the rules of international law, or upon the sense of natural justice applied to the circumstances of a particular case, or upon disputed facts.

Elihu Root

#37. There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination.

Vladimir Putin

#38. In 1988, King Hussein of Jordan said that it doesn't take any connection any more to those territories, and he would like to split from those territories. So according to the international law, it doesn't belong to anyone.

Silvan Shalom

#39. I believe that the American administration of Iraq has been arrogant, has pursued policies that are illegal in international law and has been ignorant and incompetent. I said this very forthrightly to the senators.

Juan Cole

#40. We have exhausted all of our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that ... we have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily.

Tom Daschle

#41. International law says people fighting for self-determination can use force in order to achieve their independence.

Norman Finkelstein

#42. At a time of such hope and optimism in the Middle East, we cannot let the Libyan government violate every principle of international law and human rights with impunity.

William Hague

#43. I fight because international law recognises my right.

Xanana Gusmao

#44. The U.S. - the idea that the U.S. has introduced and imposed principles of international law, that's hardly even a joke. The United States has even gone so far as to veto Security Council resolutions calling on all states to observe international law. That was in the 1980s under Reagan.

Noam Chomsky

#45. It was a mistake. On the information we had, we shouldn't have prosecuted the war. We shouldn't have changed our argument from international law to regime change in a non-transparent way. It was an error for which we as a country paid a heavy price, and for which many people paid with their lives.

Ed Balls

#46. I do think that Magna Carta and international law are worth paying some attention to.

Noam Chomsky

#47. The collapse of good conscience and the absence of accountability and public scrutiny have led to crimes against humanity and violations of international law.

Nelson Mandela

#48. If international law is, in some ways, at the vanishing point of law, the law of war is, perhaps even more conspicuously, at the vanishing point of international law.

Hersch Lauterpacht

#49. The just response to this terrible event should be to go immediately to the world community, the United Nations. The rule of international law should be marshaled, but it's probably too late because the United States has never done that; it's always gone it alone.

Edward Said

#50. I am convinced that when the history of international law comes to be written centuries hence, it will be divided into two periods: the first being from the earliest times to the end of the nineteenth century, and the second beginning with the Hague Conference.

Ludwig Quidde

#51. rogue state: a country that violates international law by committing armed aggression, torturing prisoners, assassinating opponents, and possessing weapons of mass destruction.

Mike Lofgren

#52. I had been brought up in the law and had this sort of instinct that international law operates and was there to protect principles and not to be the plaything of power and might - which I now know, of course, to be an absolute nonsense. International law should be spelled l-o-r-e.

David Lange

#53. Armed attack has a definition in international law. It means sudden, overwhelming, instantaneous ongoing attack.

Noam Chomsky

#54. We checked carefully the international law - what does a nation do when terrorists are using civilians to defend their life, as a shelter. And they say you do not have a choice.

Shimon Peres

#55. The way to defeat international terrorism is through international cooperation based on international law, clear intelligence, and a measured and appropriate military response.

Charles Kennedy

#56. Individual and national rights to wealth rest on the basis of civil and international law, or at least of custom that has the force of law.

Alfred Marshall

#57. The Senkaku Islands are an integral part of Japanese territory based on international law as well as in the context of our history.

Shinzo Abe

#58. In the corporeal world, international law is whatever the United States and Great Britain say it is.

Ann Coulter

#59. At Cheney's initiative, the United States stripped terror suspects of long-established rights under domestic and international law, building a new legal edifice under exclusive White House ownership.

Barton Gellman

#60. The land which the Society of Jews will have secured by international law must naturally be privately owned.

Theodor Herzl

#61. I stress that we unambiguously support strengthening the non-proliferation regime, without any exceptions, on the basis of international law.

Vladimir Putin

#62. As long as Palestinian violence exists, but not a Palestinian state, Israel is in danger, because it cannot obtain assistance from the international community against an entity that is not subordinate to international law.

Stephane Hessel

#63. In fact, the Senkaku Islands are ... inherent territory of Japan that is recognized in our history and also by international law.

Naoto Kan

#64. In line with international law, only the U.N. Security Council could sanction the use of force against a sovereign state. Any other pretext or method which might be used to justify the use of force against an independent sovereign state are inadmissible and can only be interpreted as an aggression.

Vladimir Putin

#65. The security of which we speak is to be attained by the development of international law through an international organization based on the principles of law and justice.

Ludwig Quidde

#66. This resolution simply says Israel has the right to defend itself. This includes conducting operations both inside its borders and in the territory of nations that threaten it, which is in accordance with international law.

John Boehner

#67. Together with international unity and resolve we can meet the challenge of this global scourge and work to bring about an international law of zero tolerance for terrorism.

Manmohan Singh

#68. They don't want to feed an ISIS narrative that there is a religious war between Islam and the Christian West, plus genocide is carefully defined under international law.

Tom Gjelten

#69. Pre-emptive war might fall within the framework of international law.

Noam Chomsky

#70. International law? I better call my lawyer; he didn't bring that up to me.

George W. Bush

#71. The core issue here is that the Israeli government refuses to commit to terms of reference for the negotiations that are based on international law and United Nations resolutions, and that it frantically continues to intensify building of settlements on the territory of the State of Palestine.

Mahmoud Abbas

#72. President Obama has created the image of an America under President Bush that routinely violated international law.

Ben Shapiro

#73. We believe that unilateral sanctions violate international law, in fact. They violate free trade. They violate human growth and development, human development, and that when you actually sanction a bank of a country, the meaning of it is quite clear. You're sanctioning medicine for the people.

Hassan Rouhani

#74. Crimea was not a non-nuclear zone in an international law sense but was part of Ukraine, a state which doesn't possess nuclear arms.

Sergei Lavrov

#75. [Donald Trump] suggestions are not only offensive but, in certain cases, dangerous and sometimes even illegal, like his dismissal of the laws of the United States international law when it comes to torture.

Hillary Clinton

#76. The case against the notion of historical objectivity is like the case against international law, or international morality; that it does not exist.

Isaiah Berlin

#77. The clever, albeit fragile, coalition against terrorism brought together by the U.S. government might be able to advance the transition from classical international law to a cosmopolitan order.

Jurgen Habermas

#78. Our first object is ... the obtaining of sovereignty, assured by international law, over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to satisfy our just requirements.

Theodor Herzl

#79. There is so much each one of us can do to make a difference. We are at a dangerous juncture in the history of mankind ... We need to defend our principles and values, human rights, civil liberties and the rule of international law. If we don't our world will further descend into a state of chaos.

Bianca Jagger

#80. These actions were taken with the support and financing of the United States. How can you say this is part of U.S. adherence to international law and U.N. resolutions? The result is a kind of schizophrenic picture of the United States.

Edward Said

#81. What else is wrong with 'suicide' bombing? Legally, less than what one might believe. While it may or may not be good strategy, it appears to be permissable under international law.

Enver Masud

#82. However difficult it may be to bring it about, some form of world government, with agreed international law and means of enforcing the law, is inevitable.

John Boyd Orr

#83. Every success in limiting armaments is a sign that the will to achieve mutual understanding exists, and every such success thus supports the fight for international law and order.

Ludwig Quidde

#84. The interests of the IMF represent the big international interests that today seem to be established and concentrated in Wall Street.

Che Guevara

#85. Advances in technology - hugely beneficial though they are - render us vulnerable in new ways. For instance, our interconnected world depends on elaborate networks: electric power grids, air traffic control, international finance, just-in-time delivery, and so forth.

Martin Rees

#86. All depend upon the engagement of as many people as possible on all levels, from civil society to national leaders, to advocate for the kind of national and international commitments, legislation, and public/ private partnerships that can make the difference.

Queen Noor Of Jordan

#87. Workers, black and white, need some kind of international affirmative action to protect them from unfair competition with unorganized or slave labor abroad and unfair competition with robots at home.

Jesse Jackson

#88. Take away the Holocaust and what do you have left? Without their precious Holocaust, what are the Jews? Just a grubby little bunch of international bandits and assassins and squatters who have perpetrated the most massive, cynical fraud in human history.

Harold Covington

#89. I come from rather an international, or in other words, a cosmopolitan background.

George Blake

#90. Jonny Evans plays sort of international football with Northern Ireland

Phil Thompson

#91. Goods produced under conditions which do not meet a rudimentary standard to decency should be regarded as contraband and not allowed to pollute the channels of international commerce.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#92. And now the fight continues for all orphans and children who need families who will love and care for them - until they too can all go home.

Kim De Blecourt

#93. When my stories were translated into other languages and received good reviews in the international press and won prizes, some Arab festivals and newspapers began to take an interest in what I had produced. This sudden Arab interest is a form of hypocrisy and nonsense.

Hassan Blasim

#94. It must be instilled in man that 'peace' is the best legacy we would leave behind for the generations to come, as we practice and follow the edicts of human rights.

Henrietta Newton Martin

#95. We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.

Harry S. Truman

#96. We live in a democracy and I do not understand why highly respected scientists from top international branches are not able express themselves!

Nina Hagen

#97. Saddam Hussein has been brutal against his people, but when he was committing those crimes, the international community did not come to the rescue of the Iraqis.

Bianca Jagger

#98. In 1961, before the container was in international use, ocean freight costs alone accounted for 12 percent of the value of U.S. exports and 10 percent of the value of U.S. imports.

Marc Levinson

#99. I believe I'm going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I'm going to die high off the people. I believe I'm going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.

Fred Hampton

#100. History is filled with tragic examples of wars that result from diplomatic impasse. Whether in our local communities or in international relations, the skillful use of our communicative capacities to negotiate and resolve differences is the first evidence of human wisdom.

Daisaku Ikeda