In this episode of The Parallel Effect Podcast, distinguished international law scholar and human rights advocate, Richard Falk, takes us into a parallel world where International Humanitarian Law — the body of law intended to place limits on warfare and protect civilians — is genuinely and universally applied.
Over the course of the conversation, Richard Falk considers what a world where no state stands above the law might make possible, and confronts the political, economic and institutional structures that have prevented that vision from becoming reality.
From the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, to Vietnam and Gaza, he outlines a long history of double standards in the application of international law. Again and again, those designated as adversaries by powerful states have been condemned for violations, while those same states and their allies, have escaped equivalent scrutiny.
He points to the structures created after the Second World War, the power of the UN Security Council veto, the unequal treatment of nuclear weapons states, and the continuing legacy of colonialism as manifestations of the same problem: a system in which those with the greatest military and economic power have also been given the greatest ability to evade accountability.
Falk describes the international system as one where “the mice are held accountable while the tigers run free.”
So what would it take to change it? The answer goes beyond reforming the UN Security Council voting system, or strengthening existing institutions like the ICC and ICJ… Falk argues that it would require a transformation of how we understand nationalism itself, a fundamental shift towards a world in which universal human interests are placed above the interests of individual states including geopolitical alliances.
But, he also identifies an unexpected potential catalyst for that transformation: climate change.
Unlike the conflicts and injustices that international law has historically struggled to address, this global crisis recognises no national boundaries. Falk suggests that the pressures created as a result — including migration and competition over resources— could begin to undermine the ‘statist’ structure of the world as it currently functions, creating the possibility of “a more prudent, and visionary, form of geopolitics.”
And it’s this possibility that brings us back to the parallel world. Not as a utopian escape from reality, but as a way of imagining what might emerge when the structures that divide us can no longer contain the challenges we face.
“The salvation of the species depends on parallel worlds becoming real worlds.”
Listen using the audio player below, or find this and future episodes on Apple Podcasts, our preferred platform.
If you prefer to read along, access the full episode transcript here.
Artist Safdar Ahmed Responds to a World Where International Humanitarian Law *Actually* Prevails
Safdar Ahmed is an artist, writer, cultural worker and cartoonist based on Gadigal and Guringai land in Sydney. He responds to Richard Falk’s parallel world through a work that sets the dire reality of our present international order against the possibility of something radically different.
This artwork is rich with detail, so Safdar has separated its individual panels allowing you to explore its intricacies more closely. These are shared below.
For Safdar, this conversation articulated a reality that is rarely confronted so directly. Falk’s unflinching language, including his description of certain ideals as “useful fictions”, brings the uncomfortable distance between the universal principles underpinning international law and the political realities of how they are applied into sharp focus.
In the documentary film below, Safdar describes the challenge of translating Falk’s analysis into a visual language. What he found most striking was the stark divide between the reality Falk describes — a world shaped by hypocrisy, double standards and political pragmatism — and the alternative he is asked to imagine. Safdar responds to this tension by dividing the work in two, creating a “cleaver” between the world as it is, and the world as it could be.
Safdar sees this friction as central to the role of the artist. Artists, he argues, have a responsibility to critically engage with the realities around them, but also to make alternatives visible.
“So, as an artist, I’m a bit of an idealist,” he says. “I think it’s also the role of artists to imagine better worlds in order to make them come about.”
