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"Canada continues to fully support Israel's right to defend itself," junior foreign minister Peter Kent said after an Israeli air strike on a United Nations school in Gaza killed 42 Palestinians last week.

"Canada has to support the right of a democratic country to defend itself," said Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff.

I agree. But I also agree with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who called the attack on the school "totally unacceptable." And I agree with Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who called for "credible, independent and transparent" investigations into possible war crimes. I can agree with all these comments because they concern different strands of international law.

Self-defence: Messrs. Kent and Ignatieff are focused on the right of self-defence, which governs the recourse to force. Self-defence is a recognized exception to the UN Charter's general prohibition on taking up arms. Historically, it was available only in response to an attack by another state's armed forces. After 9/11 and the intervention in Afghanistan, self-defence now extends, in some circumstances, to the use of force against terrorism.

But self-defence is always limited by requirements of necessity and proportionality. It's not sufficient to say Israel has a right to defend itself. We must consider whether the Israel Defence Forces are acting in a necessary and proportionate way.

After a six-month ceasefire, Hamas launched rockets at Israel before the Israeli military began its air campaign. Two weeks into the conflict, more than a dozen Israelis have died, three of them civilians. All of this is serious, but Israel's existence is not at risk from Hamas.

According to Palestinian reports, more than 900 Palestinians have been killed, nearly half of them civilians, including many children. Israeli F-16s have bombed crowded neighbourhoods, and hundreds of homes have been destroyed along with scores of government buildings. The viability of Gaza has been severely compromised.

International humanitarian law: Messrs. Ban and Pillay are focused on "international humanitarian law," which constrains how force may be applied once a conflict is under way. These rules are set out in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which Israel ratified in 1951. For the most part, they apply to Hamas as customary international law.

The direct targeting of civilians is prohibited, as are indiscriminate attacks. The Israeli military's use of white phosphorous shells is almost certainly illegal in a densely populated area such as Gaza. Individual targets may only be selected if the direct military advantage anticipated from the strike exceeds the expected harm to civilians. Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli towns rather than specific military targets are illegal. So, too, is the use of powerful bombs in crowded neighbourhoods.

The Israeli government points to the fact that Hamas is using civilians as human shields. Hiding behind civilians is illegal, but two wrongs do not make a right. The relevant question is, again, whether the direct military advantage of a particular target exceeds the risk to civilians. Is destroying a mortar position next to a school worth 42 innocent lives?

It is also illegal to target aid workers. Last week, a UN driver was killed when his clearly marked truck was struck by an Israeli shell. The incident forced John Ging, the director of UN aid in Gaza, to suspend operations. The decision was "heartbreaking," he said, but the organization had "lost confidence" in verbal assurances from the Israeli military.

War crimes: Violations of all these rules constitute war crimes, which are subject to universal jurisdiction in the sense that the perpetrators may be prosecuted in any country's domestic courts. This raises the possibility of trials if they are foolish enough to travel abroad and the local authorities are brave enough to arrest them. (In 2005, a former head of Israeli forces in Gaza said he was warned by diplomats not to leave an aircraft that had landed in London after a tip-off that British police were waiting to arrest him on war-crimes charges.) There is no possibility of prosecutions in the International Criminal Court, since Israel has not ratified the court's statute. Hamas, as a non-state actor, cannot do so.

The absence of a reliable mechanism for prosecuting Hamas and Israeli perpetrators is unfortunate. But so, too, is the support that some Canadian politicians have given to apparent violations of international law. The long-term viability of these rules depends on our willingness to speak out in defence of them - against all perpetrators.

Michael Byers is Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. He was a visiting professor of law at the University of Tel Aviv in April of 2004.