It is useless to cite law to such people, let alone international law. That does not mean that international law itself is useless. It is true, also, that international law, as such, is less a set of statutes or a codification of precedents than an evolving sense of what the international community will or will not put up with. So the U.S. is operating outside of international law. But this is an adolescent vision of how the world – the real world – works.

Source: International New York Times January 09, 2026 00:27 UTC