From time to time, various self-proclaimed experts will opine on actions that are alleged to violate something called “international law,” but I’ve found that most of the time, they’re just making it up.
There are various treaties and conventions (whose description is invariably wrong), but there is no binding set of codes nor any kind of impartial enforcement mechanism.
As Thucydides pointed out more than 2,000 years ago, the rule of conduct between nations is the strong do what they can, and the weak accept what they must. Might makes right.
At various periods there have been conventions and customs of behavior, but these are often honored in the breach as much as they are practiced. For example, it was a long-standing custom that ships at sea try to rescue survivors whenever they come across them. That lasted until World War I, when it was impractical for submarines to rescue them, and that practice (which was considered an atrocity at the time) is now universally accepted. No one expects submarines to refrain from torpedoing enemy merchant ships, and no one expects them to surface and take aboard the passengers and crew of ships they sink.
There are many other examples, but the point is that the only consistent factor is the idea of reciprocity: you treat me badly, I will treat you badly. So embassies are generally respected and left alone, until they aren’t. It’s interesting that Iran’s seizure of the American embassy in 1979 and subsequent hostage-taking is something of a footnote today.
The treatment of prisoners likewise comes down to the expectation of how your prisoners will be treated.
Now there are people who argue that morality should always prevail, and that this point is non-negotiable and completely independent of the conduct of others. I think that’s a nice sentiment, but I struggle to think of any world leaders in all of recorded history that even came close to meeting that standard.
It’s more of an unrealized ideal than a practical guide to conduct with proven results. Indeed, violations of religious morality seem the rule rather than the exception. The “the most Christian kings” of yore regularly clashed with one another, squabbling over inheritances, or just simply wanting more territory.
St. Louis IX launched two wars of conquest – technically Crusades – during his lifetime. Most of the canonized rulers made war at some time or another. It may or may not be considered “just war,” which itself is necessarily subjective.
Of course in our secular materialist age, we’re very much into creating conventions, treaties, and legalistic sounding extra-territorial bodies, but very short on accountability.
Similarly, alliances are not supposed to be like a wedding vow, binding nations together for eternity – or one or the other dissolves. They are instruments of statecraft, and there is no moral hazard in changing them as circumstances change. Obviously, a nation that fecklessly ignores its agreements will have a tough time maintaining good relations and attracting future partners, but there is no moral reason to retain an alliance if it ceases to be mutually beneficial.
To put it another way, if one’s allies become so weak as to be a burden rather than a positive addition to national strength, the alliance should end. I believe the longest alliance still in existence is that between England and Portugal, but part of why it endures is that it is rarely relevant. When England was at its nadir in the summer of 1940, Portugal remained neutral. This was by mutual agreement, but one doesn’t need an alliance to make such arrangements.
At its core, I think the fundamental problem is that things have been fairly static for a long time, and a great many public intellectuals simply cannot accept that arrangements made in 1945 or 1973 may no longer be relevant today.
Chateau Lloyd 
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