MADRID – The confirmed assassination of Ali Larijani on March 17, 2026, following the extrajudicial assassination of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei eighteen days earlier, represents more than a military escalation. It highlights the selective fragility of the post-1945 international legal order.

The United States and Israel have undertaken actions that, under any consistent reading of international law, constitute aggression, extrajudicial execution, and war crimes. Yet the institutions charged with enforcing these norms—from the United Nations to the International Criminal Court—have responded with silence, equivocation, or implicit endorsement. This impunity is not an anomaly; it reflects the operational logic of the international system, in which sovereignty is conditional upon alignment with the dominant powers.

On 28 February 2026, the United States, in coordination with Israel, carried out strikes against Iranian territory. According to Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, these operations targeted major urban centers and civilian infrastructure, resulting in hundreds of casualties. A girls’ school in Minab was destroyed. Hospitals were struck. Facilities belonging to the Iranian Red Crescent were hit. Crucially, these strikes deliberately targeted the Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei—a civilian political figure and head of state, not a combatant.

The assassination of a head of state is not a conventional military measure. It is a direct affront to the principle of sovereign equality, the foundation of the United Nations system. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter explicitly prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. There is no exception permitting the targeting of leaders deemed objectionable. Use of force is permitted only in cases of self-defence against an armed attack or pursuant to Security Council authorisation. Neither condition was met. Iran was engaged in diplomatic processes. It posed no imminent threat, a point acknowledged by Joseph Kent, former head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, who resigned in protest, stating that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation.”

The pattern continued with the killing of Ali Larijani on March 17. Larijani was both a political and security figure, central to the management of Iran’s war response. His extrajudicial killing on Iranian soil constitutes an act of aggression and a war crime. Yet the political response has been muted. The UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, in a statement on March 4, condemned extrajudicial killings and emphasized that the targeted assassinations were illegal. The Security Council has taken no action. The International Criminal Court has refrained from investigating those responsible. The message to Tehran and other independent states is unambiguous: sovereignty exists only when tolerated by the Western alliance.

This selectivity is longstanding. It reflects a legal order constructed to protect the interests of the powerful. The UN Charter formally safeguards territorial integrity, yet enforcement is contingent upon the veto of the five permanent members. When a veto-wielding power is itself the aggressor, the system becomes paralyzed by design. Costas Douzinas’ framework clarifies the underlying logic: the contemporary global order is a “state of exception,” in which sovereign power operates through the suspension of law. Acts such as the killings of Ayatollah Khamenei, Larijani, and the kidnapping of Maduro are performative demonstrations of authority. They communicate who holds power without requiring legal justification or military necessity.

This perspective clarifies otherwise puzzling actions: targeting civilian institutions, assassinating heads of state, and bombing hospitals. These are not military imperatives. They are demonstrations of impunity. They indicate that certain actors can operate outside international norms without consequence. As Douzinas notes, this is “the last roll of the dice for an empire in decline and decay, a reality show for the domestic audience.” For Iranians, there is no domestic spectacle—only destruction and the structural consequences of aggression.

Colonial inheritance of law and strategic context

The selective enforcement of international law reflects its historical origins. The Westphalian system of 1648 regulated European relations and extended sovereignty outside Europe conditionally, legitimizing subjugation and domination. That logic persists. International law today is framed in the language of human rights and a “rules-based order,” yet hierarchies remain: some states enjoy full sovereignty, others remain subordinate.

Iran occupies the sharp end of this hierarchy. Its insistence on maintaining independent foreign and military policy has made it a target of extrajudicial killings, sanctions, and military aggression. The assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei represents a direct attack on Iran’s sovereign apparatus. Larijani’s death, as the official coordinating Iran’s war response, similarly constitutes a war crime under international norms. These acts illustrate that international law is not a neutral arbiter; it operates selectively, reflecting power relationships rather than impartial justice.

The broader role of international law also warrants attention. It regulates trade, finance, and economic governance, reinforcing global capitalism while intersecting with coercive military power. Koskenniemi’s observation that law governs differently depending on states’ alignment with power is evident: the United States invokes legal norms selectively, constraining adversaries while legitimizing its own interventions. Military strategy and economic policy operate together, ensuring that law, governance, and capital reinforce the same hierarchies.

The impunity of the United States and Israel exposes the limitations of international institutions. Law cannot restrain actors willing to operate beyond norms. Iran’s response—rooted in strategic deterrence, institutional cohesion, and the functional logic of martyrdom—demonstrates a pragmatic adaptation. Sovereignty is maintained not through appeals to law but through disciplined strategy and the capacity to convert external aggression into internal reinforcement.

The assassinations of Ayatollah Khamenei and Larijani illuminate the conditional character of international law and the structural distribution of power that it reflects. The state of exception has become the operational norm, in which legality is suspended for non-Western states and selectively enforced for the powerful. International law is neither universal nor constraining; it codifies hierarchies of influence and enables impunity.

For Iran, survival depends on strategic autonomy, institutional resilience, and the ability to integrate losses into coherent governance. The deaths of its leaders are absorbed into a logic of deterrence and cohesion rather than producing fragmentation. The international system offers no protection; only discipline, coordination, and strategic foresight guarantee sovereignty. In this context, the assassination of key figures confirms structural realities: law is conditional, power prevails, and independence requires resilience.