Everywhere Insiders 49: China, Iran, ICC Justice, and X Free Speech Controversies

Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney based in New York and Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in National and Intercultural Studies and Middle East Studies from Fordham University in 2006, followed by a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law in 2009. She operates a boutique national security law practice. She serves as President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a media and security strategic advisory firm. Additionally, she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider, which focuses on foreign policy, geopolitics, security, and human rights. She is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the American Bar Association’s Energy, Environment, and Science and Technology Sections, where she serves as Program Vice Chair in the Oil and Gas Committee. She is also a member of the New York City Bar Association. She serves on the Middle East and North Africa Affairs Committee and affiliates with the Foreign and Comparative Law Committee.

In this wide-ranging interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Irina Tsukerman examine geopolitical tensions involving China, Iran, and Russia, alongside weaknesses in sanctions enforcement and international law. They critique the slow pace of global justice, discuss deportation ethics, and analyze free speech controversies surrounding X under Elon Musk. The conversation also explores Middle East ceasefire dynamics and Philippine politics, highlighting how institutional fragility and selective enforcement shape global stability and undermine deterrence.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Big news: Mr. Trump says Mr. Xi agreed that Iran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz. However, China has given no clear indication that it will pressure Tehran to do so. So either Mr. Trump exaggerated the substance of the exchange, as of May 16th, 2026, or Mr. Xi is staging a retaliatory do-nothing. Given the pattern, the former seems more likely. What are your thoughts?

Irina Tsukerman: I actually think it is the latter. I do not think Trump simply invented it, because too many people were involved and somebody likely would have said something by now. But this is fairly typical of Chinese, and, frankly, many countries’, behavior. It costs nothing to endorse a general principle, and then do little or nothing to enforce it.

There was a strong analysis along these lines: China does not need to directly ship complete weapons to Iran to help it militarily. Chinese companies can ship dual-use drone components, engines, batteries, fibre-optic cables, microchips, and other parts, that can be assembled into weapons systems. That keeps the formal denial intact while the practical supply chain continues.

All of that can be true at the same time as China saying it wants the strait open. Of course it does. China relies heavily on Gulf energy flows, and reopening Hormuz would make its life easier. But if Chinese tankers can still get through, then this is not catastrophic for Beijing, just inconvenient.

So, what did Trump get? A statement. Not even a clear condemnation. China did not say Iran was violating international law. It did not promise enforcement. It did not say it would support UN measures against Iran or refrain from vetoing them.

So this was not much of a win. Some people are spinning it as China and the US being on the same page. They are not. A vague observation is not the same thing as a commitment to condemn Iran’s actions or support enforcement.

Jacobsen: What else have we got here? Another sanctions issue. The US Treasury initially allowed a sanctions waiver on Russian seaborne oil to lapse, but then reissued a 30-day waiver allowing purchases of Russian oil already loaded or stored on tankers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had previously said the administration did not plan to renew such exemptions. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren urged the administration not to renew the waiver, arguing that it helped Russia without demonstrably lowering fuel costs for Americans. So, the waiver finally lapsed.

Tsukerman: That is a good thing. I am surprised anyone argued for renewing it in any form. I am glad it lapsed. That said, I am not convinced this means Russia will stop earning large sums from this situation. I am also not entirely sure the United States is committed to going after Russian oil with the level of seriousness required to make enforcement effective. We will have to see.

Equally concerning is that the US is discussing potentially lifting Iran-related sanctions from China, which would have a similar effect, only instead of Russia benefiting directly, China would be profiting from what are essentially sanctionable oil exchanges.

Overall, enforcement against Russia’s “shadow fleet” has been very uneven. Some vessels operating near European waters have been boarded or detained in cases involving countries such as Norway and France, among others. In other cases, including the United Kingdom, enforcement has been more limited.

Meanwhile, Russian-linked tankers operating around the Strait of Hormuz region have managed to bypass restrictions by changing flags and blending oil with shipments from other countries. This has reportedly taken place in hubs such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai. It is unclear to what extent this continues, but it has been happening for a long time, essentially since sanctions were imposed. It is reasonable to assume that some of it still persists.

The reality is that enforcement is not straightforward. While Russia may be earning less than under unrestricted trade, it is still earning enough to sustain parts of its activities. That is a non-zero, and problematic, outcome.

There should have been a coordinated international enforcement coalition from the beginning, with dedicated resources. The continued ad hoc approach reflects weaknesses in Western, and particularly European, commitment. It is not that they are entirely unserious, but they are not sufficiently organized or prepared.

After more than four years of full-scale invasion, there should be a clear and operational plan for consistent enforcement, including measures that could significantly reduce Russia’s revenue streams. This remains one of the primary pressure points.

Jacobsen: I think there are some other notable developments. A Rwandan genocide suspect, Félicien Kabuga, aged 93, has died in custody. He had been arrested in France in 2020 after more than two decades on the run and was transferred to The Hague for trial proceedings related to the Rwandan Genocide.

There are also reports that Sierra Leone has taken in hundreds of West Africans deported from the United States, according to government officials. Anything else particularly noteworthy?

How are the two major ones for this week? Any thoughts?

Tsukerman: In terms of this individual dying in custody, it is not all that surprising. He was 93 years old. He lived far longer than many of his victims.

What is less positive is that justice was never fully served. While he died not a free man, the victims do not get closure from a conviction or from a full airing of the evidence of his role in the genocide. This is another example of why there is serious criticism of the international legal system for being too slow.

By the time perpetrators face accountability for international crimes, they have often spent decades awaiting trial, or they die before even being formally charged. That is not an acceptable way to run a legal system. There is no clear justification for it. Evidentiary standards can be met, and charging decisions can be made, in much the same way as in domestic systems. It should not take decades, literally decades, to reach the point of indictment.

Quite frankly, if someone is falsely accused, it is also unfair to them to live for years under suspicion or detention while prosecutors build their case. Justice should be as timely as possible. Sometimes I wonder how resources are being managed and allocated.

The fact that proceedings take so long means justice is effectively deferred, allowing individuals to live their lives for years without ever facing a courtroom. That raises serious questions about the deterrent value of international prosecutions.

Look, I do not believe that international criminals, in the moment of committing crimes or following orders, are primarily thinking about whether they might be caught. Often, people do not consider consequences at all. But to the extent that thought ever arises, the idea that it could take decades before anything happens makes deterrence far weaker.

Often, it is not the severity of punishment that matters most, it is the certainty and speed of its application. If someone faces the death penalty fifty years from now, they may assume they will die of natural causes before that point. Anything could happen in the meantime, so why worry?

Whereas if someone knows they will receive ten years in prison relatively quickly, and will not get those years back, will be behind bars under difficult conditions, that has a more immediate psychological impact. That kind of certainty might deter at least some forms of serious criminal participation.

People might think twice about supporting or enabling abusive regimes or commanders engaged in war crimes. They might decide to withdraw rather than participate. At this point, many of the criticisms of international justice systems are quite legitimate.

Regarding West Africans being deported to Sierra Leone, at least it is on the same continent. Less can be said of the Colombian woman ordered by a judge to be returned to the United States after being deported to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which, by the way, is dealing with an Ebola outbreak that the United States may not have the capacity to help contain effectively.

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So we can all agree that maybe, transferring people to countries dealing with major epidemic outbreaks is not a good idea, from any legal, moral, or political standpoint. Beyond that, it undermines credibility to suggest that the Democratic Republic of the Congo would be a more appropriate destination for a Colombian than a Latin American country, where there would at least be a shared language and greater cultural and political familiarity.

The Congo faces severe challenges, high levels of corruption and serious political, social, and economic instability. It is an unsafe environment even for many of its own citizens, let alone for people sent there from another continent. This is not an appropriate destination for deportation, even if one believes those individuals should not remain in the United States.

West Africa is not necessarily an ideal fit for Sierra Leone, but at least it is on the same continent. Its situation, comparatively speaking, is not as dire, and there is at least a possibility that deported individuals could eventually make their way back home or to a more stable and accommodating country.

Jacobsen: So, X has agreed to a British crackdown on hate speech and militant content. The previous branding, Twitter, now X under Mr. Musk, was presented as more absolutist on free speech. That position becomes complicated once you move outside the American context.

As an international or multinational corporation, X has to operate under national laws, hate speech laws, restrictions on expression, and so forth. The absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment cannot be applied globally, because the American context represents only a small fraction of the world.

That is difficult for many supporters of the platform to engage with. I know you have more nuanced views on this, especially as an American living in New York City and also as an international lawyer. You are well-positioned to address this.

I think this is, outside of military and environmental concerns, one of the key human-interest and cultural issues people have felt relatively comfortable treating as a solution. Let me grab some water, one second.

Tsukerman: So, here are a couple of points. First, I disagree with the view that X was ever truly a free speech absolutist. Far from it, it has often failed to comply even with its own US-based claims of absolutism.

In my case, I remain banned under completely false premises. The official position of X (formerly Twitter) is that I am not who I claim to be. That is their explanation under Elon Musk. I have been permanently banned for nearly four years. I have provided my passport and other verification, publicly corroborated, that confirm my identity.

That account is attached to me. Nevertheless, the powers that be decided that I am not myself, so to speak, that is the official position of Twitter, now X.

The unofficial position is that many people at X disagreed with my political positions on very narrow, technical issues, controversies that are of little interest to the average person, and that was reason enough to ban me. But because nothing I said came close to violating their own stated rules, they had to find another justification. So the claim became that I was a fraud.

How did they justify that? Someone else created a fake account in my name many years after my own account had already been established and claimed to be the real me. Obviously, they could not provide supporting evidence, but that was enough for X’s moderators to say, “Well, there is another account, and we believe them, not you,” despite the fact that I had the password and documentation, and whoever ran that account did not.

That became the official excuse. The only way to challenge it would have been to spend significant money, pursue legal action, and likely be dragged through a prolonged process until I ran out of resources. So I chose to let it go. But I cannot possibly be the only person this has happened to.

There have been many journalists removed or banned for simply disagreeing with Elon Musk, whether personally, politically, or on technical grounds. Other public figures have lost their accounts for reasons that appear political or personal, rather than tied to clear violations of platform rules.

So I do not accept the premise that X (formerly Twitter) is an absolutist free speech platform. It is only absolutist for the people and causes it chooses to support. In other words, it is highly selective.

Ironically, some of that selectivity appears to extend to content that may be illegal, defamatory claims, in some cases incitement to violence, and accounts associated with extremist or sanctioned actors. There have been instances where such accounts remained active despite sanctions or legal concerns, while others were removed under far less clear circumstances.

So enforcement has always been uneven and questionable. It is not surprising that X is now encountering difficulties in the United Kingdom. First, the UK has a different legal framework. Second, there have been broader disputes between the US and European countries over speech standards, not only involving tech companies, but also individuals who have been investigated, detained, or charged under laws that differ significantly from US interpretations of free expression.

There have even been threats of sanctions against European countries, including the UK, for requiring American companies to comply with local regulations, framed as a violation of American principles. Of course, the response from those countries is straightforward: comply with local law or do not operate there.

For X, the options are limited. In some jurisdictions, violations result in fines, which companies may treat as a cost of doing business. In others,

Depending on the type of violation, unless companies change their behavior to comply with the law, they could be shut down entirely. That would mean losing access to a major customer base, data, ad revenue, publicity, content, all the elements that make these platforms viable businesses.

So clearly, that may have been at stake in the UK, which is why X (formerly Twitter) chose to comply rather than pursue endless litigation.

By contrast, in France, there is reportedly a criminal investigation involving Elon Musk personally, as well as X, related to illegal content such as child exploitation material. That is not a free speech issue at all, this is content that is illegal virtually everywhere, including the United States.

There has been surprisingly little coverage of this investigation in France, likely because it is difficult to defend. Either a platform is allowing impermissible content to circulate without sufficient enforcement, or it is not. That is not an argument most supporters want to highlight.

Free speech disputes, by contrast, function almost like performative conflicts, they generate attention, strengthen support bases, and provide reputational benefits. But issues involving child exploitation content are entirely different. There is no constituency eager to defend that. That shifts the dynamics very quickly.

So for that reason, developments in France have remained relatively quiet, while the situation in the UK has received extensive coverage. It is useful for X, to some extent, to frame the UK issue as a fight against censorship. That narrative plays well with certain audiences and political actors.

The French investigation does not fit that narrative. It is not about free speech, and it is not beneficial from a public relations standpoint. Quite the opposite.

We will likely see more developments. X may try to reframe compliance issues in other ways. If it cannot succeed through the courts, it may attempt to leverage political channels, possibly encouraging the US government to apply pressure on the UK Government.

But, frankly, that may not be in the US interest right now. If the Keir Starmer government were to weaken or fall, the alternatives within the Labour Party, at least until the next general election, might be even less inclined to cooperate. So, for the moment, this may be where things stand, unless something significant changes.

Jacobsen: Israel and Lebanon have extended their ceasefire by 45 days as talks mediated by Washington, D.C. conclude. That has been relatively under the radar, if I may say so, perhaps overshadowed by the US–China summit, the Iran situation, and ongoing developments involving Ukraine and Russia earlier in May. Nothing seemed significant enough for that not to receive at least moderate coverage. What are your thoughts?

Tsukerman: The issue is not only the China visit, though that certainly contributed. There was also an interest in not amplifying this too much because expectations had been set quite high.

This meeting was presented as a potential breakthrough for a peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, but that did not materialize. From what I have heard from Israeli experts, they were nowhere near a real agreement at the meeting that led to the extension. What they agreed to was to continue discussions and attempt to resolve issues later, likely with greater US involvement.

There are still substantial obstacles. Another aspect that went underreported is that what was actually agreed upon differs significantly from what was presented publicly. The framework discussed involves a potential withdrawal of Israeli forces in exchange for the disarmament of Hezbollah, alongside the development of an international plan to implement this.

The fundamental problem is that Israel’s presence in Lebanon originated precisely because the Lebanese government was either unwilling, unable, or both, to disarm Hezbollah. There have been no credible alternative actors willing to take on that responsibility. The United States has not offered to deploy forces. France has been vocal diplomatically, but has not committed troops. Neither the United Kingdom nor regional Arab powers have stepped in militarily.

Compounding the issue, the Lebanese security apparatus is significantly penetrated by Hezbollah. A substantial portion of the Lebanese Armed Forces includes individuals who are affiliated with, sympathetic to, or connected in some way to Hezbollah. That makes disarmament by internal forces extremely difficult.

At the same time, Israel does not want to remain in Lebanon indefinitely. By signaling a willingness, at least in principle, to withdraw if conditions are met, it is communicating that this is not intended to be a permanent occupation or annexation, but rather a response to security concerns. The message is that if Hezbollah is effectively neutralized, Israel would not remain.

In the meantime, operations continue. There are ongoing clashes with Hezbollah, and no finalized disarmament plan exists. It remains under discussion.

So this ceasefire extension is essentially a way to maintain stability without forcing immediate, difficult decisions. All parties appear willing to accept this arrangement because there is no viable alternative at present. Lebanon is unlikely to disarm Hezbollah on its own. External actors are unwilling to intervene directly. And Israel will not withdraw while Hezbollah continues attacks along its northern border and into its territory.

In that sense, it is a face-saving arrangement, a way to continue current policies while signaling cooperation and avoiding external pressure. It reassures international observers without fundamentally resolving the underlying issues.

Jacobsen: So, following the events of March 2025, when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant, initially circulated quietly, then made public, Rodrigo Duterte was apprehended within about a week and placed on trial. Proceedings are still ongoing, and it appears formal charges will follow.

The Philippines is now giving the ICC at least somewhat more cooperation, which is a step in the right direction. There are indications it will comply with ICC requests, including one involving Ronald dela Rosa. Officials have stated that he must be held accountable for his role in alleged crimes against humanity tied to the so-called “war on drugs.”

As former police chief, he oversaw an aggressive anti-narcotics campaign widely criticized for extrajudicial violence. That is it for now.

Tsukerman: The Philippines is a highly corrupt system, historically dominated by powerful political families competing for influence, resources, and control. When one faction is in power, there is often either an attempt to accommodate the other or a confrontation that can involve both legitimate anti-corruption efforts and politically motivated investigations.

At this point, it is difficult to separate those dynamics cleanly. However, the cases involving Rodrigo Duterte and his allies are grounded in real concerns, serious allegations of abuse of power and human rights violations.

The problem is that the way these processes are handled is often chaotic and uneven. That reinforces public distrust in the judiciary, in political institutions, and in the broader system in the Philippines. Until those entrenched power structures are meaningfully challenged by more credible and reform-oriented actors, this cycle is likely to continue.

This situation matters beyond the Philippines because of the broader geopolitical context. The United States and Japan have both been strengthening defense and strategic ties with the Philippines.

The Philippines is seen as a key regional partner in relation to China and its expanding influence, not only in relation to Taiwan, but across the broader region. If the Philippines becomes destabilized due to internal political fragmentation, it becomes more vulnerable to external influence and pressure.

That creates opportunities for outside actors to shape outcomes in ways that may not align with regional stability or with the interests of democratic partners.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Irina.

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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer-Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 1,900 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.