INTERNATIONAL LAW IS GOVERNED not only by formal rules but also by narratives that attach meaning to those rules. This occurrence is “legal storytelling” and has developed as a powerful tool in international law. Narratives can also challenge dominant ideas, reveal inequalities, and foster empathy among decision-makers.
However, as Susan Mark points out, international law is not simply a neutral system of rules but a battlefield where dominant narratives often justify the interests of powerful actors. Thus, legal narratives are frequently employed strategically to amplify international norms and secure informational authority, as seen in Russia's justifications for invading Ukraine or the United States' rationale for 'preventive war' in Iraq.
On the morning of April 13, Israel attacked Iranian nuclear and military installations, invoking Article 51 of the UN Charter by portraying Iran's alleged uranium weaponisation as an imminent threat to both international peace and Israel's national security. Such legal justification through storytelling is not a new technique; just as the U.S. manufactured legal legitimacy for the war on Iraq through a carefully constructed narrative of 'preventive war', Israel today employs similar discourse to justify its actions in Gaza and its strike on Iran.
These examples illustrate that legal storytelling functions not merely to determine legal positions but to construct legitimacy and refine legal identity. Against this background, this post examines the role of narrative setting in claiming legal identity under International Law. It argues that not only treaties or customs form a legal identity, but narrative framing through storytelling is also central to international law governance. While legal storytelling is open to all parties, in practice and actuality, structural hierarchies decide which story prevails, especially when superpowers have the capacity to manufacture consent for the story to prevail.
Legal storytelling and the narrative shift in International Law
International Law, particularly post 9/11, has become a narrative setting space where legality finds its way through compelling stories and not merely by legal rules. Garry Minda, in his article Narratives of International Law and Literature After 9/11, argues that "International law lives on narrative, and so does literature" and that international law functions less as a neutral rule and more as a performative practice, shaped by who tells the story and the global institutions that receive it.
Anne Orford (2003) extends this by critiquing how narratives of humanitarian intervention legitimise military action by powerful states. She examines legal, political, and media language to show how "saviour" discourse shrouds the geopolitical interest. Thus, legal storytelling is not merely a legal argument but about 'who tells the story'. As a result, the question of "whose story gets heard" becomes central. As the rules of international law have to be interpreted by someone, this act of interpretation leads to manipulation by superpowers that have the ability to manufacture consent due to their greater institutional access, media control, and diplomatic grip.
Narratives of imminent threat, identity and legitimacy: Iraq and Gaza
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 remains a classic example of how legal storytelling manufactures legitimacy for the use of force. The U.S. has always tried to maintain its hegemony through the threat or use of military force, evident through the official rhetoric of the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States".
Further, the U.S. went on record declaring that it would not adhere to international law in the fight against terrorism and did not wait for the Security Council's approval before using force against Iraq. What gave the U.S. the legal right to strike Iraq, even when noncompliance and a declared strategy rendered Article 51 of the UN Charter? It was nothing more than a masterfully constructed legal argument based on anticipatory self-defence, contending that Iraq's purported Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) constituted an immediate threat.
Michael Glennon, in his article in foreign affairs, makes the case that the use of force during the Iraq War bypassed the Rule of Law because the fear of the proliferation of WMD and the threat of international terrorism had established a new world reality based on unsubstantiated threats to national security. In a similar vein, Israel's assertion regarding Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is not new; it has persisted for nearly three decades as a propaganda portraying Iran as an imminent threat to its national security.
The persuasive effect of legal storytelling is also evident in Israel's repeated reference to Palestinians' use of civilians as "human shields" to cover militants. By the same logic, every settler colony in the West Bank, strategically positioned to maintain territorial supremacy, serves as a human shield.
At the same time, Israeli missile systems deployed in civilian areas are hardly recognised as militarised zones in Western narratives. Israel's military operation in Gaza is not only validated through legal references but also deeply embedded in what Oren refers to as a "conflict-supportive narrative". It presents Israel's objectives as historically legitimate and morally superior while invalidating Palestinian resistance as a threat. Netanyahu's invocation of a 3,500-year connection to the land and the rhetoric of 'return' echoes the Zionist founder Theodor Herzl's arguments in the Jewish State that the Jews are a distinct people entitled to a sovereign homeland not only on ethical grounds but also because of centuries of persecution, including by Nazis. This narrative frames Jewish returning to their ancestral land as morally compelling, and any opposition is consequently an ethical injustice to them. As a result, these virtues and requirements mask behaviours that otherwise are scrutinised under international law.
These cases exemplify how dominating powers construct legal narratives to transform political goals into legitimate legal arguments. Iraq and Gaza serve as examples of how legal narratives construct "imminent threat" and moral superiority, which enable preventative wars to be framed as justified acts of self-defence, even when international law prohibits such notions.
Iran and the diction of imminent threat
Preventive use of force is unacceptable in civilised international relations; however, like the United States' preventive war against Iraq, it appears to be an integral part of Israel's official international policy. To create a legal discourse of official policy, it must be declared and established as a new norm of international law. In his book ‘Hegemony or Survival', Noam Chomsky highlights numerous characteristics that the target of preventive war must possess; the relevant one is "there must be a way to portray it as the ultimate evil and imminent threat to survival". Israel uses this attribute as a defence for an attack on Iran.
Marko Milanovic, in his blog 'Is Israel's Use of Force Against Iran Justified by Self-Defence? makes the case that Israel's attack on Iran "rests entirely on the claim of self-defence" under Article 51 of the UN Charter. He emphasises importantly that Israel has "not provided any clear evidence of an imminent armed attack by Iran", which means that it is similar to preventive war. Israel's approach reflects a strategic calculus rooted in narrative framing similar to the U.S. legal narrative about Iraq. It justifies its military operation against Iran, targeting its nuclear programme, scientists and military leaders, claiming that Iran's alleged uranium weaponisation is an imminent threat to both international peace and Israeli national security.
Israel's characterisation of Iran as a nuclear aggressor parallels long-standing Western narratives of "threats" in the Middle East, establishing legal justification through projected fear rather than actual provocation. The gap between legal obligation and narrative rationale exemplifies how strategic storytelling shapes perceptions of legality in which legal standards are satisfied not by factual evidence but by hallucinated suspicion, diplomatic grip, and collective historical recollection.
Conclusion
Therefore, legal storytelling is a strategic power tool in international law. While it is available to all parties, the dominance of certain legal narratives illustrates how law, media, and political power have come together. International Law is not an equal playing field of contrasting narratives; rather, it is an arena where power determines which stories are heard and which are silenced (Gerry Simpson, 2004). Powerful states can enforce their legal narratives through military force and international organisations that validate or remain silent on their claims. Robert Cover remarks that legal interpretation occurs in a field of pain and death. Doctrine alone cannot give meaning, but the institutional power that enforces it does. Narrative framing has evolved as a legal tool for strategic power that defends 'preventive war' and changes the fundamental vocabulary of legitimacy. Scholars and legal practitioners must interpret legal texts in a way that articulates and speaks the stories of all within the international community without falling prey to politics of self-interest.