[LadyCailin]

My point is, the powerful nations are the enforcement mechanism in international law. When they are the ones breaking the law themselves, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an enforcement mechanism, it just means it’s a possibly unjust one, just like with national enforcement mechanisms.

[utilize1808]

The difference is that in the national case, justice is expected; whereas in the international case, it must be understood that there is not supposed to be a "enforcement mechanism" that delivers justice.

[dragonwriter]

In both case there are enforcement mechanism that deliver the will of the enforcers collectively which sometimes correlates with justice or at least a reasonable reading of the letter of the law; in both cases there are a wide set of failure modes from the perspective of law and even moreso justice, because law enforcement (and, in the case of concern for justice, also law making) rely on institutions ultimately composed of people, and the interests of those people is often not in the law or justice.

If you see the difference as being “in the national case, justice is expected”, you either have an extremely naive view of national law, or at a minimum of an extremely narrow and privileged one.