The wheels of justice turn slowly, nowhere more slowly than at the world’s top international courts, where lawless powerful states and their allies enjoy impunity — perhaps.

No state commits crimes with more assured impunity than the State of Israel. Its unique dispensation may be crumbling.

Last week in The Hague, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, British barrister Karim Khan, announced that he’ll be seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, for a host of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza – among these, starvation as a weapon of war, willful killing and murder, extermination and persecution.

“Reasonable grounds” also exist for charging Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader inside Gaza, the Commander-in-Chief of Hamas’ military wing, and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, for a host of crimes committed since “at least” October 7, Khan also announced.

Four days later, across town from the ICC, the international community’s top judicial body, the International Court of Justice, ordered Israel to suspend its military operations in the southern Gazan city, Rafah, to open the Rafah crossing to humanitarian aid, and to let international observers in to ensure that evidence of genocide is not destroyed.

The ICJ ruling was issued in response to an ongoing case initiated by South Africa against Israel, in January, under the 1994 Genocide Convention. This was the fourth time South Africa asked the Court to order Israel to halt its assault on Gaza.

For Israel, last week’s ICJ ruling was the latest twist in a slow-motion legal train wreck. Long accustomed to doing what it wants – with impunity — Israeli leaders are now doubling down on their lawless acts, both in Gaza and the West Bank.

To learn more about last week’s landmark rulings at the ICC and ICJ, the GPM reached out to three legal and human rights scholars. In today’s podcast, you’ll hear Toby Cadman first. Cadman is a British barrister specializing in international criminal, human rights and humanitarian law. He’s the co-founder of The Guernica Group and Joint Head of Chambers at Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers in London.

Listen to our conversation in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

Watch our conversation here:

To learn more about Karim Khan’s applications for arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders at the ICC – what they say and what they don’t – the GPM reached out to Canadian legal scholar William Schabas. Schabas is Professor Emeritus of International Criminal Law and Human Rights at Leiden University, and professor of international law at Middlesex University in the UK. Among the twenty books he’s authored — The International Criminal Court: A Commentary on the Rome Statute, and Genocide in International Law. Schabas was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006.

Listen to our conversation in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

Watch our conversation here:

No one has followed the international legal dimensions of Israel’s prolonged, effectively permanent occupation of Palestine more than Michael Lynk. Lynk is a retired professor of law at Western University, in Ontario. Between 2016 and 2022, Lynk served as the seventh UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian Territories.

The GPM reached out to Michael Lynk for his thoughts on arrest warrants soon to be issued against top Israeli and Hamas leaders at the International Criminal Court, and about this past Friday’s ruling by the International Court of Justice, ordering Israel to halt its military assault on the southern Gaza city, Rafah.

Listen to our conversation in today’s podcast. Click on the play button above, or go here.

Watch our conversation here: