Selective Universalism: The Israeli Case and the Crisis of International Law

This article examines the transformation of international law from a classical order centred on sovereignty, territorial title and interstate stability into a contemporary normative order structured around self-determination, human rights, decolonisation and international accountability. It argues that this transformation has generated both emancipatory potential and opportunities for selective legal mobilisation. The Israeli case, particularly within the United Nations system, provides a paradigmatic field in which to examine the tension between universal legal principles and their politically asymmetrical deployment. The article investigates how the cumulative use of legal categories — occupation, colonialism, apartheid, genocide and denial of self-determination — has produced a distinctive pattern of institutional exceptionalisation. By comparing the Palestinian case with other unresolved claims of self-determination, especially the Kurdish question, the article distinguishes legal accountability from the strategic, differential and delegitimising use of international law. Its central claim is that the crisis of contemporary international law does not lie in its commitment to accountability, but in the risk that universal legal categories may be selectively activated through particularistic institutional pathways.