Jalil Dabdoub | The goat, sheep, and the world order – The fall of principle

Bruce Golding’s recent article in the Jamaica Observer, titled ‘Things fall apart’ in almost every respect, is a truthful and courageous reckoning with the collapse of the post-WWII rules-based international order.

The article, written by someone who has lived long enough to remember the ashes from which the post-war international order arose, and wise enough to recognise when its foundations are being deliberately dismantled.

Its historical grounding, grasp of international law and articulation of how power has increasingly displaced principle are persuasive. Golding is correct in diagnosing that what were once treated as deviations from international norms are now being recast — as acceptable state practice.

He is right to say that the principles forged in the aftermath of WWII – sovereign equality, territorial integrity, human rights, peaceful dispute resolution - while never perfectly observed, were at least acknowledged as binding. He is right to warn that, when those ideals are abandoned, the consequences are not theoretical. They are measured in blood, displacement, fear, and the quiet despair of small nations suddenly reminded that law does not protect them — only power does. His warning that this shift threatens small states, particularly in the Caribbean, is both sobering and accurate.

With one exception, the author’s argument holds.

It is a lacuna so significant that it threatens the universality of the very principles Golding defends.

PALESTINIAN LIBERATION

For almost a century, the Palestinian liberation struggle has stood as the most prolonged, visible, and extensively documented case of sustained violations of international law in the modern era. From the very creation of Israel – itself a breach of international law to forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, and the denial of Palestinian self-determination — to ongoing land theft, military occupation, illegal settlement expansion, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, extrajudicial killings, and repeated human rights abuses, these are not disputed or obscure claims. They are documented in countless UN resolutions, reports by international human rights organisations, and the work of legal scholars worldwide. Yet, decade after decade, no meaningful accountability has followed.

This matters, because international law does not decay all at once. It erodes gradually, through exceptions that become habits, and habits that harden into precedent. Golding is correct to say that the world has now entered a dangerous phase where violations are no longer treated as aberrations but as acceptable statecraft. But this did not begin with Trump. Trump did not invent contempt for international law.

Long before today’s crises, the world learned a devastating lesson from Palestine: that international law applies rigorously to some states, selectively to others, and scarcely at all to those shielded by power and patronage. The message was unmistakable: power, not law, prevails.

One cannot convincingly defend a rules-based order while ignoring the longest-running case in which those rules were systematically ignored, bent, suspended, or nullified. To do so is not merely an oversight; it reflects the very selectivity that has hollowed out the system from within - the very selectivity that has brought us to this point.

Golding condemns unilateralism, the arrogation of judicial authority by powerful states, and the substitution of might for law. But these practices did not emerge in a vacuum. They were normalised and accepted over decades by the international community in Palestine. When law is applied selectively, it ceases to be law and becomes policy. When principles are invoked only against adversaries, they lose their moral force and become instruments of convenience.

CENTRAL TRAGEDY

This is the central tragedy of our times: the collapse of restraint did not begin with today’s aggressors — it was taught to them.

If international law had been enforced consistently — if violations in Palestine had carried consequences comparable to those imposed elsewhere — it would be far harder today for any leader to act with impunity. The world would have retained not only rules, but credibility. Instead, it taught a generation of leaders that power determines legality, that alliances excuse transgressions, and that moral outrage is conditional on race, ethnicity, religion and nationality

In that sense, Golding’s failure to confront this long-standing injustice is not merely an oversight; it is a reminder of how deeply embedded selective outrage has become, even among those most committed to principle (like Golding).

This is not to diminish his warning. On the contrary, it strengthens it. The danger we now face is not simply that norms are violated, but that no one believes they hold anymore.

This moment must also serve as a sobering warning to Caribbean leaders — PM Holness among them — who have navigated these waters by expediency rather than principle. Holness has readily invoked international law in protecting Caribbean sovereignty and the zone of peace. Yet, on Palestine, where international law has been violated most persistently and most egregiously, he has maintained a deafening silence — absenting Jamaica from critical UN votes and declining to speak out in defence of Palestinian rights, in effect supporting breaches of international law. This selective application of principles weakens Jamaica’s moral authority and strategic position. Caribbean people know what leaders sometimes forget: the same knife wey stick goat, stick sheep. Holness, like others, may yet learn — that silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality but vulnerability.

The lesson of Palestine is central. Until selective justice is confronted honestly, the principles Golding invokes will remain aspirational rather than binding.

As Abraham Lincoln once warned, a house divided against itself cannot stand. An international order divided between law for some and licence for others cannot endure.

The tragedy is not only that things are falling apart, but that they were allowed to do so deliberately, while the world insisted that this one exception did not matter. Palestine did in fact matter. And now we live with the consequences of acting as if it did not.

Jalil S. Dabdoub is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com