This would be bad for everyone. That is why many countries, including Norway, still insist on placing international law squarely at the center of their foreign policy. It is also why Norway’s government – together with other European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez – has raised concerns about the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

But our defense of shared rules runs up against considerable criticism. Some deride it as naive, suggesting that international law is little more than a pipe dream of soft-hearted idealists, who fail to grasp the unforgiving logic that real-world statecraft demands. Others argue that international law shouldn’t shape state behavior: a framework that reliably shields repressive regimes, like those of Venezuela or Iran, is not worth defending.

Advocates of international law must take these criticisms seriously, beginning with the charge that international law chiefly serves to protect tyrants. Russia, waging a war of aggression against Ukraine since 2022, is an obvious example of a state that systematically flouts its legal obligations. Iran, which has carried out violence against civilians at home and abroad, is another.

But the rights and protections afforded by international law to rogue states and their leaders are not much different from the legal safeguards democratic states provide to criminals, who retain certain rights even after their convictions. However tempting it may be to circumvent the procedural rigor the rule of law demands, genuine liberty depends on the impersonal enforcement of legal due process by independent courts.

The same is true at the international level. Countries seeking to exercise force against others must make their case to the United Nations Security Council and gain authorization for any offensive action. Countries are exempted from this rule only in cases of self-defense, and vague, speculative, or unverified threats – such as those associated with Iran’s nuclear capabilities – do not meet this threshold.

While these rules and procedures can make it more difficult to act against “criminal” regimes, they are a bedrock of the liberal world order. That is why, far from defending this order, rogue states want nothing more than for others to emulate their lawlessness. Criminals thrive when criminality becomes the norm. If the West resorts to subjective standards such as “defending liberty” to justify violating international law, repressive states will lose no time inventing their own excuses for violence.

While critics of international law dismiss it as mere window dressing, its impact can be seen everywhere, in a vast range of activities, from how we fish and trade to how civil aviation operates across borders. To be sure, rules are regularly broken and human rights are still violated, but the overall trajectory is unmistakably positive. And, despite setbacks in Iran, Venezuela, and Ukraine, international law’s keystones – the prohibition on the use of force and the inviolability of national sovereignty – retain broad support. Since violent and territorial conquest was outlawed – notably, by the UN Charter in 1945 – war between states has fallen dramatically.

Given war’s prevalence in human history, this is a remarkable achievement. Today, most state borders can be considered fundamentally arbitrary, or at least open to challenge, with almost all countries including territory over which some other state could claim a historical title. Yet violent interstate conflict remains an exceptional occurrence, not least because of the international stigma attached to territorial conquest through war.

It is no coincidence that previous generations, in the wake of global crises, embraced collaboration rooted in shared rules and institutions. After World War II, the United States had the foresight and determination to lead the way in realizing a world order that relied on international law and multilateral institutions to constrain the arbitrary exercise of power . Today, this system is strained, but its resilience should not be underestimated. It does not operate perfectly, but it overwhelmingly works.

A world where power trumps principle is invariably hostile to small states such as mine. But a lawless system is also bad for the large and powerful. The challenges that will shape our future – such as pandemics, narcotics flows, terrorism, or the diffusion of biological weapons – do not respect borders or recognize spheres of influence. They can be contained only through binding agreements and institutionalized cooperation.

“If civilization is to survive,” US President Dwight D. Eisenhower noted in 1958, “it must choose the rule of law.” We in Norway agree, and will continue to defend international law, even when it protects those who least deserve it.