The International Criminal Court may issue arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders, as a result of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israeli civilians and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, according to Israeli officials and what The New York Times and other media outlets call “foreign officials.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the people who might be named in an arrest warrant as early as this week, Israeli news publication Haaretz reported on April 28, 2024.

The ICC, an independent tribunal based in The Hague, Netherlands, prosecutes genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes – the latter being a legal term that includes attacking civilians and committing other wartime violations, such as blocking humanitarian aid.

Karim Khan, the ICC’s current chief prosecutor, announced an investigation in November 2023 to scrutinize Hamas and Israeli suspects in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack in Israel that killed 1,200 people and kidnapped hundreds more, and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, which has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.

The ICC’s criminal investigation comes on the heels of the high-profile genocide case that South Africa brought against Israel in December 2023 in another international tribunal called the International Court of Justice.

But these investigations and courts are distinct. While the ICC can hold trials of individuals allegedly responsible for criminal violations of international humanitarian law, the International Court of Justice is a part of the United Nations that rules on civil litigation and cannot charge individuals with crimes.

As a scholar of human rights and international courts, I think it is important to emphasize that international criminal tribunals lack any enforcement powers of their own. And that means they may never be able to arrest suspects or bring them to trial.

These international courts therefore have a mixed record of holding senior political and military leaders accountable for their crimes. It’s only if and when political leaders fall from power that there is any chance that their governments will arrest and hand them over to international courts for prosecution.

Take the example of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, since March 2023, has defied an ICC arrest warrant for allegedly committing war crimes during the Ukraine war. As long as Putin remains in power, there is practically no prospect of his arrest.

International criminal tribunals such as the ICC have a twofold problem. First, these tribunals do not have an actual international police force to carry out arrests.

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