Is international humanitarian law (IHL), the law designed to spare civilians as much as possible the hazards of warfare, at risk of imploding? That is the conclusion of a new compendious study of current armed conflicts around the world, citing the killing of civilians and other atrocities in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere. “While the threat to IHL is not yet existential,” it warns, “it is at a critical breaking point.”

There is no doubt that the disregard for civilian life in these conflicts has been horrendous. In Gaza and Sudan, it has risen to the level of genocide. But do these represent serious violations of the law or its demise?

Let’s consider an analogy: when an ordinary murder is committed on a city street, is that a serious crime or a license to kill? If the authorities investigate, arrest, and prosecute the suspect, we consider the murder an unfortunate offense but don’t question the status of the law against it. But if the authorities were to ignore the killing, suggesting that they are just as happy to be rid of the victim, it would be another matter entirely.

By the same token, the key to understanding whether the lethal conflicts of recent years spell the dissolution of IHL is to examine the reaction. The response has been mixed, weaker than it should be, but still considerable. That leads me to believe it premature to pronounce IHL dead.

Take Gaza. There is no denying that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has ripped up the Geneva conventions and their protocols – the main codification of IHL. The Israeli military has indiscriminately bombed neighborhoods, attacked military targets when it knew the civilian toll would be disproportionate, deliberately fired on civilians, and deprived civilians of food and other necessities.

Yet the international response has hardly been a shrug. The UN security council is stymied by the veto – in this case Washington’s – but repeated condemnations have been issued by the UN general assembly and the UN human rights council, where there is no veto. The monitoring mechanisms established by........

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