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The recent news that Ireland would officially support the legal case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was hardly given a few days for those behind it to be jubilant, even briefly, before news emerged that any cases pending in the International Criminal Court would be vetoed by the U.S.

It’s important to know the distinction between these two international courts. The former, the ICJ was set up by the UN, with the U.S. playing a key role, in 1946, its powers, in theory, to include prosecuting governments. By contrast the ICC, which was set up in 2001, has the ability to prosecute individuals for human rights abuses. For the U.S. to veto it and its actions, sends a very clear message to the word: “you can’t touch Netanyahu”.

For Ireland to join a handful of countries to prosecute the Israeli government represents a token level of opprobrium and outrage from a tiny contingent of western citizens, but which shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The U.S., which helped create the ICJ, is not a member of it, so cannot be prosecuted itself, while in theory, Israel, which is a member, could be. But if the Americans are so brazen to simply veto the ICC’s case against Netanyahu, it’s hard to believe that it will allow the ICJ to come even close to prosecuting its government.

The two cases though do raise some important questions. First and foremost, does international law really exist? And if it does, who does it protect? If the mantra is like the parenthesis that journalists add to the so-called “rights-based world order” – which is that the West has the right to change its own rules when it sees fit to protect itself – then it is likely that the farce of the ICJ and the parody of international law it assumes to champion will soon end. Many Global South countries will be watching these cases and asking pertinent questions about these two courts and questioning their validity and role. Are they merely tools of western imperialism?

And if so, how long have they got? One might assume that at some point there will be a hue and cry from Global South countries who wish to form their own international courts.

Much of the media attention of late has been dedicated to the possible arrest of Netanyahu given that the ICC has an arrest warrant issued for him. A handful of countries commented that he would be arrested if he travelled to their countries, but the impotence of the ICC and its opaque role in international law was highlighted by its own members who rejected its ruling.

Yanis Varoufakis, a firebrand economist and media darling who was also Greece’s former finance minister tweeted: “International Law is officially dead, by the West’s own hand: The Polish PM declared he will ensure the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest will be ignored when he visits Poland. Meanwhile U.S. Congress imposed sanctions on ICC officials”.

And so international law is a sham at best and only really a tool for western imperialism at best when the U.S. needs to use it from time to time. While it is true to say that it was international law which urged Obama to pull U.S. soldiers out of Iraq in 2011, fearing hundreds of court cases made against its forces, it is also true to say that Clinton brushed aside international law when he called for NATO airstrikes against Serbs in the summer of 1995. Furthermore, international law is ignored by the U.S. in Syria where it supposedly has well over a 1,000 troops still stationed there mainly in the north protecting a region which it loots and plunders by stealing oil and selling it on the international market to Israel for a song.

It is fair to say that international law is at best a myth and at worse an ephemeral concept which is kept valid by the vast majority of Global South countries which allow the U.S. to keep the fantasy alive. Many African hands might note that most of its countries are members of the ICC which might protect tyrants from attempted coups d’état from neighbouring tyrants while the biggest tyrant of all – America – is laughing all the way to the bank. International law is America’s dirty trick which it plays on everyone else. It is the conjured up ghost in the room when the neighbours get together for a bit of fun with the Ouija board, the black cat in the black room, sitting on the black chair. It doesn’t really exist. But when it does, briefly, it’s at everyone’s expense except the Americans and the genocidal maniacs who align themselves to its hegemony.