The UN Charter's Article 2(4) forbids using force to alter borders, even after suffering aggression. The International Court of Justice doubled down on this principle in 2004, ruling that prolonged occupation never justifies unilateral annexation. Yet international practice tells a different story. States routinely retain captured territory for security reasons, facing minimal consequences from a selective international system.

Consider the Golan Heights. Syria spent years shelling Israeli civilians from these strategic peaks before the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel seized the territory under Article 51's self-defense provisions. UN Resolution 242 subsequently called for withdrawal from "territories" occupied in the conflict, but its drafters deliberately omitted the word "all," preserving space for negotiated adjustments. This deliberate ambiguity reflected the drafters' recognition that it might necessitate border modifications.

Israel's 1981 annexation triggered predictable condemnation. The UN Security Council declared it null and void through Resolution 497. Then nothing happened. No sanctions materialized. Israel has governed the Golan for over fifty years. Syria, despite surviving a catastrophic civil war, has never attempted to reclaim it by force. This restraint reveals a fundamental truth about Middle Eastern deterrence psychology.