Donald Trump’s threats to wipe out a civilisation and Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus in Lebanon have once again shone a spotlight on the rules of war.

“Collective punishment on a population and the targeting of protected civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law,” legal experts told ABC News of Trump’s threats, while his promises to take the country’s oil, “which could amount to pillaging” is also “barred under the law”.

In Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said it was able to verify that Israel was again using the “notorious weapon”, “reigniting accusations that it is breaking the laws of war”, said The Guardian.

When asked whether his threats constituted a war crime, Donald Trump answered, “You know the war crime? The war crime is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

So what constitutes a ‘war crime’?

War crimes are “violations of international humanitarian law” that, unlike genocide and crimes against humanity, “always take place in the context of an armed conflict, whether international or not”, said the United Nations.

These include cases of murder, torture, pillage, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and non-combatants such as humanitarian aid workers, as well as the deliberate targeting of religious and educational buildings, hospitals and, in some cases, vital infrastructure such as power stations and key transport links.

The use of weapons banned by international conventions, such as chemical weapons or cluster munitions, can also be considered a war crime.

What are the major conventions and treaties?

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols introduced in subsequent decades are international treaties that serve as the “most important rules limiting the barbarity of war”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ratified by all 196 UN member states, in times of war they protect non-combatants, such as civilians, medics, aid workers, and those who can no longer fight, including the wounded, sick or prisoners of war.

There are also additional conventions banning the use of biological weapons (1972), certain conventional weapons (1980), chemical weapons (1993), anti-personnel mines (1997), and cluster munitions (2008).

What happens if someone breaks the rules?

The International Criminal Court (ICC), established under the Rome Statute in 2002, “investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression”.

“Champions of the court say it deters would-be war criminals, bolsters the rule of law, and offers justice to victims of atrocities,” said the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank. Yet it has, since inception, also “faced criticism from many parties” and has been fundamentally weakened by the refusal of several major powers to join.

As well as the US, Russia and China, non-signatories include India, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Recent arrest warrants for national leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have “generated mixed reactions from Washington and raised questions over the future of the court”, said the CFR.

As “no formal ICC jurisdiction applies” to countries that have not signed up to the ICC, the “more immediate legal framework” remains the Geneva conventions of 1949 onwards, said The Guardian.

The Conventions and their Protocols contain stringent rules to deal with those who commit what are known as “grave breaches”, who must be pursued and tried or extradited, whatever their nationality.

The key point here, said Professor Andrew Clapham in OpionioJuris, is that the rules for offences deemed war crimes under the Geneva code apply to “everyone irrespective of whether their state has ratified the ICC Statute, and they can be tried in multiple states around the world, irrespective of whether those states are parties to the ICC Statute”.

“The idea that anyone can avoid accountability for grave breaches by sticking to non-ICC states for one’s trips is fallacious when that person is alleged to have committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.”

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, has been barred from entering the US, becoming the first person to be hit by Donald Trump's sanctions against the beleaguered tribunal.

The US president has accused the ICC – formed in 2002 to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in member states – of abusing its power and threatening national security by taking "illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel".

An executive order signed by Trump last week imposed sanctions on designated ICC personnel that included freezing their US assets and barring them and their families from entering the US.

In December, ICC President Tomoko Akane warned that such measures "would rapidly undermine the court's operations in all situations and cases and jeopardise its very existence", said The i Paper.

What did the commentators say?

Trump's "vicious assault" on the Netherlands-based ICC is "no surprise", said The Guardian, but "goes even further" than sanctions imposed in his first term, "attacking the fundamentals of the court and endangering its functioning".

The EU has stated the US sanctions represent a "serious challenge" to the work of the ICC, which is currently investigating alleged crimes in 12 ongoing situations, including Darfur, Ukraine, Venezuela, Afghanistan and Myanmar.

The US – along with China, India, Russia and Israel – has never been part of the ICC but in recent years even its members have increasingly ignored its rulings amid a fracturing of the post-Cold War international rules-based consensus. Last year, Mongolia failed to execute an international arrest warrant against Russia's President Vladimir Putin after he landed in the country for an official visit, citing the country's energy dependence on its powerful neighbour.

While it has issued 33 unsealed arrest warrants – ranging from Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Putin to Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony – the court is "currently without a single trial ahead for the first time since it arrested its first suspect in 2006", said Time.

If nothing else, this shows how international humanitarian law "needs instruments that better reflect the nature of contemporary conflict, institutions which can apply them dispassionately, and the acquiescence of sovereign states to their jurisdiction", said Stephen Daisley in The Spectator.

To this end, "it is possible to be a liberal internationalist, concerned with the humanitarian dimension of conflict, and to welcome Donald Trump's intervention".

What next?

Banning Khan, a British citizen who was designated by Washington on Friday, "will be seen as retaliation" for the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, said The Times.

But Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned Trump's executive order appears "designed not only to intimidate court officials and staff involved in the court's critical investigations, but also to chill broader cooperation with the ICC".

The BBC reported the court's "technical and IT operations – including evidence gathering – could also be affected", while "observers have voiced fears that victims of alleged atrocities may hesitate to testify".

US sanctions could have a particularly "chilling effect" on banks and companies outside the US that do business with the court, HRW said.

One way to safeguard against this would be through an EU Blocking Statute, "regulation that aims to protect companies and individuals from the bloc from the effects of extra-territorial sanctions imposed by third countries", said Middle East Eye.

The ICC, which has received the backing of dozens of member states in recent days, could go further and charge Trump and other US officials behind the sanctions with obstruction of justice. This would mean the US president and senior members of his administration would not be able to travel to ICC member states, including most European countries.

With the process of bringing war criminals to justice being "slow, painful and often unsuccessful at the best of times", many have long "wondered how effective the ICC can really be", said The Guardian.

Trump's sanctions are a "perverse recognition of the importance of the court, and of international law more generally".

What happened

The International Criminal Court Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, saying the three men were likely responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and Israel.

Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis and abducted 250 others in its Oct. 7. attack. Israel's known death toll in Gaza topped 44,000 yesterday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, with more than half of the dead noncombatants.

Who said what

The ICC said it found "reasonable grounds" to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were "criminally responsible" for the "war crime of starvation as a method of warfare" and the "crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts." The crimes attributed to Masri, commonly known as Mohammed Deif, include murder, torture and "rape and other form of sexual violence." Israel said it killed Deif in July, but the ICC said it had no proof of his death.

Netanyahu said he "utterly rejects the false and absurd charges," calling the ICC a "biased and discriminatory political body" with no jurisdiction in Israel. The White House National Security Council said the U.S. "fundamentally rejects" the ICC's decision. The court is an independent body, and neither the U.S. nor Israeli is a signatory to its statute.

What next?

Netanyahu and Gallant are "unlikely to find themselves in a courtroom standing trial on the charges anytime soon," since the ICC relies on its 124 signatory nations to make arrests, The New York Times said. But the warrants "could affect their international travel," The Washington Post said, as several European leaders — including Israel allies — "affirmed they would uphold their obligations" to the court and arrest the Israeli leaders if they set foot in their countries.

The Gaza war is a "military quagmire and a human tragedy", said The Economist. It is also fast turning into a "diplomatic disaster for Israel", at a critical juncture in its history. 

Last week, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor alleged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister had committed war crimes in Gaza: using starvation as a weapon of war and deliberately attacking civilians. (Hamas's leaders were also accused of war crimes.) The move is bitterly contentious, and the ICC judges won't decide for weeks whether there's enough evidence to issue warrants. 

There is certainly an arguable case that Netanyahu's government has "breached the laws of war" in Gaza by not providing food and medicine to civilians "to the fullest extent of the means available", as the Geneva Conventions demand. Either way, the PM's "disastrous" strategy in Gaza has brought "ignominy" to Israel. His departure is long overdue.

Israel's 'fire alarm'

The ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and Netanyahu's determination to press on with the offensive in Rafah – the southern city where more than a million civilians have sought sanctuary – make it ever harder for Israel's allies to back it, said the FT. 

Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to immediately halt its assault in Rafah. Israeli forces pushed on, and on Sunday, 45 people, including many women and children, were killed in an air strike on an encampment housing displaced people in a supposedly safe zone. 

Meanwhile, Ireland, Norway and Spain have all recognised Palestinian statehood – a "symbolic blow against an Israeli leader who rails against any talk of a two-state solution". 

An "international reckoning" has long been coming, given Netanyahu's record of refusing to offer a credible peace plan to the Palestinians, said Jo-Ann Mort in The Guardian. Now a moment of "extreme crisis" has arrived. This is "a fire alarm for Israel". Will it take heed?

A weakening position

"The world is pitted against Israel in a way we haven't seen before," said The Jerusalem Post. 

Much of the international pressure comes from "smug, sanctimonious" critics embracing a "ludicrous and disgusting double standard": why did the ICJ ask for Israel's Rafah operations to be halted, but not for Hamas to free Israeli hostages? Yet we must accept that our leaders' poor decisions and inflammatory rhetoric have paved the way for this growing isolation. 

The current pursuit of "total victory", without defining any political goals that can slow the "escalating cycle of bloodshed", has not made us stronger, said Tehila Wenger in Haaretz. It has made us weaker – and is losing us friends.

This week, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan announced his office had requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three top Hamas officials, including leader Yahya Sinwar. The ICC alleged that each had perpetrated various forms of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the months-long war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. "Those who do not comply with the law should not complain later when my Office takes action," Khan stressed in a statement accompanying his allegations. "That day has come."

Reaction to Khan's announcement was swift and predictably controversial, with both Israeli and Hamas leadership bristling at what they each deemed the implied equivalency between their respective conduct — a sentiment echoed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also claimed the ICC has "no jurisdiction over this matter." Crucially, neither the United States nor Israel are signatories to the ICC's founding Rome Statute, which defines the international body's authority over member nations. 

As the Gaza conflict continues to test the limits — and limitations — of international law, the very real prospect that the ICC could issue Khan's requested warrants could have much more immediate effects on Israel, Palestine, and beyond. 

What did the commentators say?

The ICC "cannot try individuals in absentia," so if the warrants are issued, "custody of the accused is key," think tank Chatham House said. However, the ICC has "no means to enforce an arrest" and so its rules merely "oblige all 124 ICC signatory states to arrest and hand over any individual subject to an ICC arrest warrant if they set foot on their territory," Reuters said. 

Khan's request is "historic in that it is the first time the [ICC's Office of the Prosecutor] has brought charges against a head of state who is supported by Western nations," said Gissou Nia, director of the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council. If the warrants are issued, "tricky diplomatic questions may ensue" — particularly in Europe, home to some of the ICC's most fervently supportive nations, as well as "countries to which Netanyahu and Gallant are likely to travel in the future." Ultimately, then, the "more likely outcome will be severe restrictions on the ability of Netanyahu and Gallant to travel," which, in turn, "may further isolate Israel globally and accelerate the growing push for Netanyahu to leave office." A similar situation extends to Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' political leader, who "will have to think harder about his regular trips to meet senior Arab leaders," and will likely spend most of his time in Qatar, which is not a Rome Statute signatory, BBC said.

Although Israel isn't a signatory to the ICC's Rome Statute, that "doesn’t mean its citizens cannot be prosecuted by the court," CNN said. A previous investigation into Israeli actions launched by the court in 2021 determined the "territorial scope of this jurisdiction extends to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem." Palestinian Authority leaders signed the Rome Statute in early 2015, rendering the whole of their territory — including that currently controlled by Hamas — under ICC jurisdiction. 

What next? 

As of right now, no arrest warrants have been issued. Khan's request must be "approved by a panel of three judges — from Romania, Benin, and Mexico — at the ICC before they can be implemented," Time said. "It is not guaranteed they will agree to issue the warrants." While there is "no set time frame" for that panel to make its decision, the "chamber has previously acted with expediency to issue decisions granting arrest warrants within about a month," said Haydee Dijkstal, a senior fellow for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

Should warrants be issued, and arrests ensue, "it usually takes years" to conduct trials for the types of crimes alleged by the ICC, Chatham House said. Parties may need to "gather and preserve reliable evidence," which is "particularly challenging amid active armed conflict situations" and which "may require the consent of states to access territory."

Accused parties could, if charged, attempt to challenge the warrants by proving there is an "independent and impartial judicial process in place" within their respective nations that is prepared to "conduct the case instead of the ICC," Dijkstal said.

What happened

The International Criminal Court's top prosecutor, Karim Khan of Britain, said Monday he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three top Hamas officials, including leader Yahya Sinwar. Hamas broke international law by killing, kidnapping and raping Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, Khan said, while Israel's use of starvation and targeting of civilians in Gaza likely amounted to war crimes.

Who said what

"We must collectively demonstrate that international humanitarian law, the foundational baseline for human conduct during conflict, applies to all individuals and applies equally across the situations," Khan said.

President Joe Biden said it was "outrageous" for Khan to target Israeli officials, arguing "there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas." Israel's Gaza offensive "is not genocide," he added. Netanyahu and Sinwar both said only the other party should face punishment. 

This works out great for Netanyahu: Just when it appeared his "days in power might finally be numbered," the ICC stepped in "to save him," Politico said. Whatever Khan hoped to accomplish, the warrant application will only "cause Israelis to rally around their embattled prime minister."

What next?

Khan's request must be approved by ICC judges before warrants are issued. Israel and the U.S. are not part of the ICC, but if the warrants are approved, Netanyahu would have to be careful traveling to any of the ICC's 124 member states.

'Of course the death penalty is racist. And it would be wrong even if it weren't.'

Los Angeles Times editorial board

Civil rights groups have asked the California Supreme Court to invalidate the death penalty in the state, arguing it's racist, says the Los Angeles Times editorial board. They're right. A study found "Black defendants were 4.6 to 8.7 times more likely to be sentenced to death than other defendants," and the disparity was larger when the victim was white or Asian. But the death penalty "would still be wrong" if biases were eliminated. It gives the government "too much power."

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'Marjorie Taylor Greene's attention ploy flops'

Joe Perticone in The Bulwark

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has been "dangling an axe over House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for weeks" for passing Ukraine aid, says Joe Perticone. But it's apparent even to the right-wing provocateur herself that she "overplayed her hand." Greene was hoping to boost her standing by ousting Johnson the way Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) got rid of Kevin McCarthy last year. But her antics have "further alienated herself from her colleagues" and diminished her influence.

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'Biden should not stand in the way of the ICC'

Kenneth Roth in Foreign Policy

The Biden administration is trying to talk International Criminal Court prosecutors out of charging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for obstructing aid to Palestinians, but Washington's arguments "are weak," says Kenneth Roth. It insists the ICC lacks jurisdiction, but the governments that created the court two decades ago have already "overruled" that claim. "As it did for the alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, the Biden administration should stand aside and let the ICC process run its course."

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'New laws are turning police into "supercitizens"'

John Pfaff in The American Prospect

Republican state lawmakers are making "police more impervious to any meaningful oversight," says John Pfaff. Florida and Tennessee have "gutted" independent oversight boards, packing them with current and former officers. Elevating "police to the baronial class" threatens efforts to "make our criminal legal system more racially just." It also poses a "much bigger, existential threat" ahead of a presidential election in which "one candidate who has extraordinary police and first-responder support is unlikely" to concede if he loses.

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Israeli officials reportedly fear that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior government figures.

Such a move, which might extend to Hamas leaders, "would probably be seen in much of the world as a humbling moral rebuke, particularly to Israel", over the war in Gaza, said The New York Times.

But it would also represent "awkward tidings" from The Hague to the US, said Andreas Kluth for Bloomberg. If Washington is tempted to "do the convenient rather than the principled thing" and dismiss the ICC tribunal, it would undermine "one of the greatest achievements of postwar American leadership: the development of international humanitarian law".

What did the commentators say?

The ICC – not to be confused with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which hears cases brought against nation states – is the "world's only supranational tribunal that can try individuals for war crimes and other atrocities", said Kluth.

Both Israel and the US do not recognise the ICC's jurisdiction, and it "doesn't have its own police force or army – a recurring problem with enforcing international law in general". An accused individual would only be locked up if they travel to a signatory country and that government "puts on the handcuffs".

The ICJ is "also causing headaches for the US and Israel" as it deliberates claims brought by South Africa that state-led genocide has been committed against Palestinians in Gaza. This week, Turkey joined Colombia in formally requesting to join the case against Israel, which has been described by the US as "completely without any basis in fact".

So far, the ICJ has said that Israel's actions could amount to genocide and ordered it to take measures to prevent it, rather than declaring that the assault "was genocide full stop", said New York magazine. The court is expected to rule again in the coming years, though. If the US then dismissed more solid findings or failed to rein in its ally, the consequences would be "catastrophic not only for the Palestinians but for the whole 'rules-based international order' that the US built in the aftermath of World War II".

The Gaza conflict is "an extreme example of the breakdown of the law of war, but it is not an isolated one", said Oona A. Hathaway in Foreign Affairs. The wars since 9/11 have "chipped away at protections for civilians" established through the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Washington has used its powers to "weaken constraints on the use of force, aggressively interpret the right to self-defence, and allow for more expansive targeting of dual-use sites and structures", which has placed more civilians in harm's way. Other countries, including France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UK, have since "loosened constraints on their own militaries".

The law of war also "began eroding" partly because conflict "increasingly involves non-state actors", such as Islamic State or Hamas, blurring "the crucial distinction" on which humanitarian law rests, said Kluth. "Is a woman in plain clothes who plants a bomb a combatant or a civilian?" he asked. "What about a hospital in which terrorists also hide weapons?"

What next?

"In many ways the notion of international law is a fantasy," said Michael Sexton for The Australian, as the only law that can be enforced within a country "is that created by its own domestic political processes".

Israel might simply not observe orders from the ICJ. The UN Security Council could, in theory, send forces into Gaza to enforce them. But "in practice", this could be vetoed by any of the five permanent members of the council and it "seems unlikely" that the US would agree.

It is tempting to conclude that international laws "hold little meaning today", said Hathaway, but "even a hobbled system of international humanitarian law has made conflict more humane". At a time when "the laws of war are once again being severely tested", the US must "act now to renew and strengthen them".

'What Columbia should have done instead of brutalizing its student protesters'

Alexander Sammon at Slate

Columbia University didn't have to call in a "notorious" New York City police unit to "descend upon the campus" and arrest "nonviolent student protesters" occupying Hamilton Hall, says Alexander Sammon. Just up Interstate 95, Brown University showed there's a better way to address pro-Palestinian student demonstrations. Brown's governing body voted to divest from companies it believes have facilitated "Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory," and its "nonviolent student protesters agreed to vacate their encampment" the same afternoon.

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'An ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu would be a grave mistake'

National Review editorial board

It would be a "massive, institutionally suicidal mistake" for the International Criminal Court to issue warrants for the arrests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials, says the National Review editorial board. If the ICC targets Israel, America's next. Five years ago, ICC "critic-in-chief" John Bolton tried to "protect America and its allies" from the court's reach. A Netanyahu warrant would assure that the next Republican administration would "prioritize steps to cripple the court."

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'Automatic braking on U.S. cars will save lives. Biden is right to require it.'

Los Angeles Times editorial board

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's decision to require automatic emergency braking in cars "can save hundreds of lives each year," says the Los Angeles Times editorial board. The rule makes technology mandatory by 2029 to "stop and avoid contact" with cars ahead at 62 miles per hour. The sensors must "avoid hitting pedestrians" at 40 mph and detect them in the dark, when most fatalities occur. It's overdue. There's "no reason" to "tolerate 41,000 traffic deaths" annually.

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'DEA finally expected to reclassify marijuana'

Joe Lancaster at Reason

The federal government's decision to "change the way it regulates marijuana" is "welcome, but it does not go far enough," says Joe Lancaster. Reclassifying cannabis as a less dangerous drug, on par with Tylenol with codeine rather than, say, heroin or peyote, would mean it will "no longer be completely forbidden." The old description was "ridiculous," especially since so many states have legalized pot. But the next step is nationwide decriminalization. "Marijuana prohibition is an antiquated notion." 

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What happened?

The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two senior Russian military officers, accusing Lt. Gen. Sergei Kobylash and Adm. Viktor Sokolov of war crimes in Ukraine. Last year the ICC ordered the arrests of Russian President Vladimir Putin and children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.

Who said what?

Kobylash, a top Air Force officer, and Sokolov, who led Russia's Black Sea Fleet, "bear responsibility for missile strikes" against "the Ukrainian electric infrastructure" in late 2022 and early 2023, disproportionately harming civilians, the ICC said.

The commentary

Russia has "repeatedly bombed" and "killed uncounted civilians" in Ukraine, The New York Times said. But here "the weight of evidence and the clarity of the command structure" could help prove war crimes in court. Putin won't turn over Kobylash or Sokolov, so this is "mostly symbolic," The Washington Post said. But last year's arrest warrant did limit Putin's travel.

What next?

It's unlikely Kobylash or Sokolov will ever be "arrested or tried," but these warrants "can become the building blocks for a broader legal framework after the war," the Times said.

Less than one month after South Africa officially charged Israel with committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza at the International Court of Justice, the United Nations' highest judicial body this week made its first preliminary ruling in a case that's captivated — and polarized —  much of the world. 

On Friday, the ICJ released its initial findings that called for Israel to refrain from acts of genocide, allow an increased flow of aid into the besieged Palestinian territory, and "prevent and punish" instances of incitement toward genocide within Israeli society. It also called for the immediate release of the more than one hundred hostages held in Gaza by Hamas militants who were captured in the group's assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, during which upwards of one thousand Israelis were killed.

While the measures, which the ICJ stressed are "provisional," are essentially non-enforceable, the court has ordered Israel to report back within one month of the ruling to detail what policies it will put in place to follow the various requirements handed down by the judges. Crucially, Friday's report neither confirmed nor denied that Israel was currently committing genocide, nor did it call for an immediate cease-fire between the Israeli military and Hamas fighters. As such, the ruling — backed by the overwhelming majority of the court's judges — falls largely "in line with what most legal experts had forecast," The New York Times reported, with University College London human rights expert Kate Cronin-Furman noting the ICJ had "stuck pretty closely" to a previous provisional ruling regarding Myanmar's alleged genocide against the Rohingya people. 

'This is still a good thing'

Friday's ruling was hailed as a "decisive victory for the international rule of law" as well as a "significant milestone" for Palestinians in a statement released by the South African government. Moreover, the ruling shows "there is no credible basis" for Israel's past claims that its conduct in Gaza has been in accordance with international law and genocide treaties.

Ceding that "many will be disappointed" by the lack of a cease-fire demand, Kings College London lecturer in international relations Alonso Gurmendi hailed South Africa's "win," even if it's not the "best win of the century." In particular, Gurmendi explained on X, the ruling made clear that Palestinians "are a protected national group," and, as the South African government noted in its statement, Israel's previous claims that it can continue on its present course of "acting lawfully" has been "disproven," and leaders now "LEGALLY need to change course." Weaknesses aside, "this is still a good thing," Gurmendi concluded. 

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority praised Friday's ruling as well, with Foreign Minister Riad Malki telling The Wall Street Journal that the court's order shows other states have "clear legal obligations to stop Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza."

Although the language of the ruling was "not optimal" for Israel, that the court neither called for a cease-fire nor officially declared that Israel was carrying out a genocide means there will likely not be any "political or economic international reactions," Hebrew University human rights expert Barak Medina predicted to the paper.

'Hague Schmague' 

Following the court's decision, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X praised the judges for not ordering a cease-fire, which would have violated the country's "fundamental right" to self-defense after Oct. 7. He also rejected South Africa's still-pending allegation of genocide as "not only false" but an "outrageous" accusation that "decent people everywhere" should reject. Netanyahu's office also ordered his government's ministers "not to comment on the ruling" according to Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper. Nevertheless, shortly after the ruling was handed down, the country's far-right, ultra-nationalist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir mocked the decision on X, posting "Hague schmague" followed by an Israeli flag. 

Friday's ruling is merely the first of what is expected to be a drawn-out legal process over the underlying question of genocide in Gaza, and was made in light of the fact that the "catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further," ICJ President Judge Joan Donoghue explained. 

According to The Washington Post, a final verdict on whether or not Israel has indeed carried out a genocide already "could take years." 

Israel will defend itself against South Africa's claim that it is committing "genocidal" acts in Gaza.

After Pretoria filed the case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Eylon Levy, a spokesperson for the Israeli government, told South African leaders that "history will judge you, and it will judge you without mercy".

The 84-page claim is "substantive", "tightly argued" and "only rarely strays from its chief necessary purpose of seeking to prove Israel's genocidal intent", wrote The Guardian's diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour.

Israel's decision to defend itself sets up a "high-stakes showdown before a panel of judges in the Great Hall of Justice" in the Dutch city, said The Associated Press. But with an estimated 22,400 people killed by Israel in the territory following the 7 October attacks by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis, can the case stop the war?

What the papers said

South Africa has requested that the ICJ declare "on an urgent basis that Israel is in breach of its obligations in terms of the Genocide Convention", and that Israel should "immediately cease all acts and measures in breach of those obligations and take a number of related actions".

The "genocidal actions" listed in the suit include "the killing of Palestinians in Gaza in large numbers, especially children; the destruction of their homes; their expulsion and displacement; as well as enforcing a blockade on food, water and medical assistance to the strip", said Al Jazeera.

They also include "measures preventing Palestinian births by destroying essential health services crucial for the survival of pregnant women and babies". Together, the claim argues, these measures are "intended to bring about their [Palestinians] destruction as a group".

But although the court's rulings are "intended to be binding", analysis by an American lawyer found that that the ICJ's measures have been respected in only 50% of cases, said Wintour. In the other 50%, including Ukraine v. Russia in 2022 and the Gambia's claims of genocide against Myanmar in 2020, the "losing state party simply defied the court".

Nevertheless, said Al Jazeera, while any rulings by the ICJ may have "little bearing on the war itself", a ruling in favour of South Africa and the Palestinians would "pile significant pressure on Israel's number one backer and de facto weapons depot – the US government".

But the White House has already condemned South Africa's move, describing the allegations in the claim as "meritless". National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called the submission "counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever", said The Independent.

The BBC added that while the ICJ does "not have the power to bring prosecutions", its opinions "carry weight with the UN and other international legal bodies".

What next?

Authorities in South Africa have confirmed that the ICJ has set an initial two-day hearing to begin on 11 January. "Our lawyers are currently preparing for this," wrote Clayson Monyela, spokesperson for South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation, on social media.

Al Jazeera noted that proceedings "can take time – years, even", and pointed out that the court is "still deliberating on Gambia's case against Myanmar from 2019". The case will "probably drag on for years", agreed the Los Angeles Times.

South Africa's filing includes a request for the ICJ to urgently issue legally binding interim orders for Israel to "immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza". These orders, known as provisional measures, would remain while the case progresses. An order in this case could be delivered within weeks.

But with Israel promising to fight the case "to dispel South Africa's absurd blood libel", there are no signs of either side backing down.

'The United States can better promote democratic values... as an ICC member'

Kelebogile Zvobgo in Foreign Affairs

President Biden has "ordered his government to begin sharing information with the International Criminal Court’s investigation into atrocities committed in Ukraine," says Kelebogile Zvobgo in Foreign Affairs. But the U.S. has argued for decades that "the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the nationals of nonmembers such as Israel," the U.S., and, awkwardly, Russia. Washington can't have it both ways. If it wants to hold Vladimir Putin accountable, the U.S. has "to finally join the court."

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'The former president's current language represents an imminent threat'

Jeffrey Toobin in The New York Times

Gag orders won't shut up Donald Trump, says Jeffrey Toobin in The New York Times. The judges in his civil fraud trial and Washington election subversion case have barred the former president from saying anything "to intimidate witnesses." But there's "little reason" to think he'll temper his "vast range of threats and attacks" on other matters. Someday a fan will violently "follow through on Mr. Trump's words," and "the blood will be on his hands."

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'Today, most public schools fail'

Stephen Moore in the New York Sun

America's "collapsing" high school test scores constitute a "national emergency," says Stephen Moore in the New York Sun. "ACT scores have fallen" six straight years. College-readiness is at a three-decade low. This "puts our national security, our technological superiority, and our economic prosperity in grave danger." Students need discipline, "high expectations," and classical curriculums. Teachers unions insist vouchers for private education hurt public schools. Actually, school choice diverts resources to any educators doing things right.  

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'There is now less "self" in self-checkout'

Amanda Mull in The Atlantic

Self-checkout is "beginning to look like a failure," says Amanda Mull in The Atlantic. Automated payment kiosks were supposed to speed up and simplify shopping. Scan your stuff, "plunk it in a bag," and you're done. By now we all know that "checkout kiosks bleat and flash" when you put something down wrong. Buy wine and you have to wait for a lone, harried worker to scan you through. "Paid human labor" to the rescue.

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As the war in Ukraine rages on, the International Criminal Court (ICC) last month issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.

The Russian president and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, are accused of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine during the year-long invasion.

Russia does not recognise the ICC nor extradite its citizens, so “it is highly unlikely that Putin or Lvova-Belova will be surrendered to the court’s jurisdiction any time soon”, said The Guardian. But the issuing of the warrant still represents “a highly significant moment”, the paper added.

What are the charges?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) last month issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. They were charged with unlawfully seizing and moving children out of Ukraine – a crime against humanity as stipulated in UN human rights conventions and the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute.

Of the thousands of crimes linked to the Russian president, this is one of the easiest to substantiate. Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab issued a report in February stating that at least 6,000 Ukrainian children, ranging from infants to 17-year-olds, are known to have been deported from occupied eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia or Crimea without their parents. The true number is likely much higher. Ukraine’s government says it is at least 16,000, and the total number could be as high as 400,000.

How do the abductions take place?

There have been cases recorded dating back as far as 2014, when Russia’s proxy war against Ukraine began. But when the full-scale invasion started last February, the process started happening on an unprecedented scale. Children have been separated from their parents through phony “evacuation orders” and in “filtration camps”, where Russian forces and their proxies search and interrogate Ukrainians leaving conflict zones. Some Ukrainian parents in occupied territories, desperate to get their children out of the warzone, have agreed to send them away for short stays at what were depicted as summer camps, only to have their return indefinitely postponed.

Russian troops have also scooped up children from schools, hospitals and orphanages. Orphanages in pre-war Ukraine held more than 105,000 children – more than any other European country except Russia – but most of them are so-called “social orphans”, meaning they are in care because of poverty or abuse: 90% had living relatives. Russian-backed local government officials have taken over orphanages and arranged for the rapid transfer of children into Russia.

What happens to them?

Some are swiftly put up for adoption, with Russia offering its citizens between $300 and $2,000 in state aid per child per year. The government has staged photo opportunities in which dazed children are welcomed with teddy bears, gift baskets and hugs from strangers. Under a decree signed by Putin last May, they’re then fast-tracked for Russian citizenship. Initially, though, most of the children are placed in a system of re-education camps: the Yale report identified 43 of these, many of them in Russian-occupied Crimea, some clustered around Russia’s biggest cities, and some as far away as its Pacific coast – closer to Alaska than Ukraine.

What is known about the camps?

Their primary purpose is apparently to erase the children’s Ukrainian identity and turn them into patriotic Russians. Inessa Vertash, of Beryslav, in previously occupied Kherson Oblast, reluctantly let her 15-year-old son, Vitaliy, attend a Russian camp at the urging of his school’s headmistress.

After two relatively pleasant weeks, he was moved to another camp that, he said in a rare phone call home, was “like a prison”. Attendees were beaten for refusing to sing the Russian national anthem, sexually abused and psychologically manipulated. “They told the children: ‘Your parents have left Ukraine and are never coming for you,’” Vertash said.

What is Russia’s goal?

Russian propaganda portrays the abductions as humanitarian “evacuations” to get children out of harm’s way. Ukraine’s commissioner for children’s rights, Daria Herasymchuk, describes the programme as “an act of genocide”. “They change their citizenship, give them up for adoption under guardianship, commit sexual violence and other crimes,” she says. Putin wrote an infamous essay in July 2021 arguing that Ukrainian nationhood was a 20th century fabrication, and that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people” – all of whom are Russian, whether they admit it or not. The abductions appear to be an attempt to convince Ukrainian children that this is the case, and to replenish a dwindling Russian population, depleted by a low birth rate, ageing, extensive emigration and the carnage of the war.

Will either Putin or Lvova-Belova be prosecuted?

It’s very unlikely. The deportations would appear to meet the UN’s definition of genocide, which in addition to mass killings includes “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”, and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. But Russia (like the US, China and Ukraine) is not a member of the ICC, and the court does not conduct trials in absentia. The Kremlin labelled the charges “outrageous and unacceptable”.

Can the children be rescued?

About 350 children have been returned so far, and the Ukrainian government has asked foreign governments and international organisations for help in retrieving more. But Putin has said that he plans to expand, not abandon, the “Happy Childhood” project in the coming months. Russia makes it difficult, if not impossible, for parents to recover their children. In many cases, it has barred anyone but a child’s legal parent from picking up a child in Russia. Since Ukraine currently bars adult men under 60 from leaving the country, that often means only the mother can make the dangerous, prohibitively expensive journey into Russia via a third country to pick up her children. Olga Lopatkina managed to recover six of her children from occupied Donetsk after months of negotiations. The children had been told to forget her. “Doesn’t Russia have its own kids?” she said. “I have no idea why they need ours. I guess it’s just to hurt us.”

The ousted Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir will be handed over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to face charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Nicknamed the “Butcher of Darfur”, Bashir is being delivered to the Netherlands by Sudan’s joint civilian and military government, which is running the country during a three-year transition to elections in 2022.

His rule came to end in April 2019 after demonstrations led to mass protests at the gates of the military headquarters in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

Who is the Butcher of Darfur?

Bashir is the former dictator of Sudan, and is wanted on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges stem from his direction of mass killings during the conflict in Darfur, which began in 2003.

He was overthrown last year following mass protests, stemming from anger over the rising cost of food. During the protests, some of the armed forces deserted their posts to defend the demonstrators from pro-Bashir militiamen.

Without military support, Bashir was forced to step down and power passed into the hands of his lieutenants, some of whom have also been accused of war crimes.

Military and civilian leaders subsequently agreed a power-sharing arrangement, in which the military leadership will move aside to allow civilian control next year. Elections for a fully civilian government will follow in 2022.

Bashir is the first head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant for him in 2009.

However, he continued to travel freely in Africa, the Middle East and China, being hosted by governments who refused to turn him over to The Hague, says The Times.

He was eventually tried and sentenced in Sudan for financial crimes in December last year, and has been in custody ever since.

How did he earn his nickname?

Bashir became known as the “Butcher of Darfur” after directing the Janjawid Arab militia to violently suppress a rebellion in 2003.

He oversaw atrocities and genocide carried out by Janjaweed and Sudanese government forces during the conflict.

The UN estimates that around 300,000 people were killed, with around 2.7 million forced from their homes.

Bashir was indicted by the ICC on 4 March 2009 with five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes:

• Attack against a civilian population, constituting a war crime
• Pillaging, constituting a war crime
• Murder, constituting a crime against humanity
• Extermination, constituting a crime against humanity
• Forcible transfer of a population, constituting a crime against humanity
• Torture, constituting a crime against humanity
• Rape, constituting a crime against humanity

On 12 July 2010, he was charged by the ICC with three additional counts of genocide:

• Killing, constituting a crime of genocide
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm, constituting a crime of genocide
• Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destitution, constituting a crime of genocide

Will he face justice?

The agreement to hand Bashir over was made between Sudan’s transitional government and Darfur rebels during peace talks in Juba, the capital of neighbouring South Sudan.

Mohammed Hassan al-Taishi, a member of the Sovereign Council that took over Sudan after Bashir was overthrown, said the government would hand over all those for whom the ICC had issued arrest warrants.

“Those who have been indicted by the ICC, they have to go there,” said Taishi in a statement. “Second, a special court must be set up to investigate crimes committed in Darfur.”

Three of Bashir’s most senior aides are also wanted by the ICC.

The ICC prosecutor said in December that justice must be “finally served for the victims of atrocity crimes in Darfur – either in a Sudanese court, or before the ICC”.

However, the Financial Times notes that the ICC has a “patchy record” when it comes to prosecuting people for serious war crimes.

Last year it sentenced Bosco Ntaganda, a Congolese former rebel leader, to 30 years in prison. But it has since been claimed that it is “not clear whether the ICC… had assembled a watertight case against Mr Bashir”.

Benjamin Netanyahu has called for an uprising against the International Criminal Court and its staff, after its chief prosecutor announced she would investigate alleged Israeli war crimes.

“I think that everybody should rise up against this,” the Israeli prime minister told a Christian television network.

“The US government under president Trump has spoken forcefully against the ICC for this travesty, and I urge all your viewers to do the same. To ask for concrete actions, sanctions, against the international court – its officials, its prosecutors, everyone.”

He claimed the ICC was launching a “full frontal attack on… democracies’ right to defend themselves and on Israel’s right, the Jewish people’s right, to live in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel”.

Netanyahu also invoked the Holocaust, saying: “A third of the Jewish people went up in flames. There was nothing we could do. Now, after the Holocaust, the State of Israel was established and the attempts to destroy the Jewish people have not disappeared.”

The Israeli prime minister was enraged when Fatou Bensouda announced last month that she would seek to open a formal inquiry into allegations of on-going war crimes in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

She said the inquiry would examine alleged crimes carried out by both Israelis and Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, which has been accused of “intentionally directing attacks against civilians”.

Although she has yet to respond to Netanyahu’s latest comments, in a recent interview she told the Israeli news site Times of Israel that accusing her of anti-Semitism was “particularly regrettable” and “without merit.”

The Guardian says the Netanyahu is following a “similar tactic” from the Trump administration, which blocked a potential ICC investigation into its own troops’ conduct in Afghanistan, denying entry to the US by ICC officials, and later revoking a visa held by Bensouda.

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The ex-president of the Ivory Coast has been acquitted of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, raising further questions about the credibility and effectiveness of the Hague-based institution.

Laurent Gbagbo, who was charged in connection with violence following a disputed 2010 election that left 3,000 dead and 500,000 displaced, was the first former head of state to go on trial at the ICC.

The five-month stand-off between supporters of Gbagbo and his rival, Alassane Ouattara, saw some of the most brutal clashes in the country's history, and only came to an end after French-backed forces stormed the presidential palace.

Yet despite claims by the prosecution that Gbagbo had used “all means” to cling to power, judges ruled they had failed to demonstrate “the existence of a 'common plan' to keep Gbagbo in power” which included crimes against civilians, or a “policy to attack a civilian population”.

After spending seven years in prison, “Gbagbo will follow in the footsteps of his wife Simone Gbagbo, who walked away from a 20-year jail term in Ivory Coast in August when she was granted amnesty by Ouattara after seven years in prison”, reports Al Jazeera.

Inside the court, the public gallery erupted in loud cheers, while outside supporters of Gbagbo gathered with champagne. In Ivory Coast’s economic capital, Abidjan, shirtless men ran through the streets toasting the former president.

But victims of the civil war who had testified against him were devastated, with some worried about reprisals and others considering leaving the country. Human rights organisations described the ruling as “disastrous”.

Gbagbo’s acquittal has raised serious questions about the ICC, which has failed in its attempt to build successful cases against former DR Congo Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Since it came into being in 2002, ICC prosecutors have won only three war crimes convictions.

“Whenever a case involving mass atrocities essentially collapses at the ICC, it does damage to the perception of the court as a credible and effective institution of international justice,” Mark Kersten, author of Justice in Conflict, told the BBC.

“Many are concerned that the court is emerging as an institution where only rebels can be successfully prosecuted,” he said.

The Guardian says the 17-year-old ICC “has long been criticised for disproportionately going after Africans”, although the current prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian, has worked to change that, opening investigations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and the Ukraine.

The New York Times says “some analysts have criticised the overall approach of the court — a faraway entity that targets leaders and works largely through intermediaries who fail to gain the trust of locals”.

“On the other hand, the ruling demonstrates the judges' independence and impartiality and makes it harder to push the narrative, popular among those who fear the long arm of the ICC, that the court is a biased weapon of neo-colonial justice used purely to convict African leaders,” the BBC’s Anna Holligan says.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) will be formally dissolved this week, after 24 years, 4,650 witnesses and 2.5 million pages of transcripts.

Has it achieved its objectives and what, if anything, will be its legacy?

Established in 1993 as the former communist state of Yugoslavia torn itself apart, the ICTY was the first of its kind since the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals at the end of the Second World War.

Sitting for a total of 10,800 days, the tribunal has had some notable successes, bringing a number of high-profile figures to trial. They included former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, General Ratko Mladic and Croatian commander Slobodan Pralkjak, whose in-court suicide brought international attention to the ICTY’s final judgement.

The court indicted 161 people, including former presidents, prime ministers and generals, all of whom were either caught, handed themselves in or died. Ninety of those brought to trial were convicted.

“Ultimate success in hunting down fugitives, however, has taken decades and there has been criticism that the tribunal represented victor’s justice: about two-thirds of those charged were Serbs,” says The Guardian.

Many Serbs have called the tribunal to a witch-hunt against their countrymen.

Speaking to The Guardian, Philippe Sands QC, professor of international law at University College London, said the ICTY’s example has been “pivotal”, paving the way for a broader international consensus on war crimes justice and heralding a more ambitious era of universal jurisdiction under the International Criminal Court.

“It was something utterly new in terms of international jurisdiction and humanitarian law,” said Wolfgang Schomburg, the first German judge at the ICTY in The Hague.

The international community’s decision to convene an ad hoc court - for this one purpose - was “a quantum leap on the path to more justice,” Schomburg told German news site DW.

While the tribunal blazed a trail of firsts, Radio Free Europe argues “shortcomings such as failing to prevent the early release of those found guilty of war crimes have planted lingering doubts over its success in bringing justice and reconciliation to a region where ethnic tensions continue to simmer”.

Over the years, the court has been accused of bowing to US pressure by acquitting several senior defendants on appeal, “the logic of this argument being that the US wanted to avoid setting an international legal precedent of convicting high-ranking generals that might one day be used to convict decision makers in the US military”, says DW.

Eric Gordy, a sociologist at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, said the tribunal’s major achievement was to give victims and civilians a voice in a way that would not have otherwise been possible, creating new legal precedents such as marking out sexual violence as a war crime and setting the precedent for tribunals about Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

However, with Russian and the US withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the ICC, and no tribunal set up to investigate wars crimes in Syria, “it remains to be seen whether the Yugoslav tribunal will become a relic from a more hopeful time or a trailblazer in a cause that was always bound to suffer setbacks”, says The Economist.

The South African government has said it would consider leaving the International Criminal Court following a row over its failure to arrest Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir last week.

Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC on charges of genocide and war crimes, fled South Africa after attending an African Union summit despite a court order barring him from leaving the country.

His departure led many to accuse the South African government of flouting international law by failing to uphold its legal obligations to the ICC. A number of senior government officials now face possible criminal charges for their role in facilitating his departure.

Today the government, which argued that Bashir held diplomatic immunity at the summit and so could not be arrested, has announced that it is reviewing its membership of the international court. It says it needs to establish how to "balance its obligations to the ICC with its obligations to the AU and individual states".

There are growing calls for Pretoria to cut ties with the international court, reports the South African Times. Earlier this week, the secretary general of the ruling ANC called the ICC "dangerous" and urged the government to withdraw from it.

Africa and the ICC have a notoriously troubled relationship, with the AU arguing that the organisation is biased against its members. It has advised African leaders not to co-operate with the court – despite the majority of African nations being ICC signatories.

If South Africa did decide to withdraw from the international court, it would become the first country in the world officially to do so, causing damage to its international reputation.

"First South Africa lets a mass murderer go; now it threatens to let go of the very idea of international justice," tweeted Andrew Stroehlein, media director at Human Right Watch.

But removing the Rome Statute from South African law would not end the country's obligations to the ICC immediately, points out the Mail and Guardian's associate editor Phillip de Wet.

Withdrawal from the ICC would not be immediate as it requires a minimum notice period of one year, during which time South Africa would be legally obliged to fulfil its commitments to the court.

Why didn't South Africa arrest Sudan's president?

25 June

The failure of the South African government to arrest Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir was unconstitutional, according to the country's High Court.

The ruling was delivered in Pretoria seconds before the government confirmed that al-Bashir had already fled the country in his private jet, in defiance of a previous court order.

South Africa has come under increasing pressure to arrest the leader, who is wanted for crimes against humanity, with human rights groups condemning the government's failure to hand him over to the International Criminal Court.

"South Africa has shamefully flouted the ICC and a domestic court to free a man wanted for mass murder of Africans," said Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch.

What happened?

Bashir was welcomed by South African officials as he landed in Johannesburg this weekend to attend the annual African Union summit, despite growing calls for him to be arrested. In 2009, he was indicted on charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the conflict in Darfur which killed over 300,000 people. South African human rights lawyer Allan Wallis argued that he should have been welcomed with "handcuffs, not a red carpet."

Ahead of the summit, the ICC issued a strongly worded statement calling on South Africa and other member states to fulfil their obligations to the court by executing the arrest warrant for Bashir.

While the South African government argued that heads of state have immunity while attending the African Union meeting, the Southern African Litigation Centre brought an application to the local courts to compel authorities to arrest Bashir. An interim order was issued, preventing him from leaving the country before the final ruling had been made. But before its contents were announced in the High Court on Monday afternoon, Bashir left a military airbase near Pretoria on a private jet.

Why was he allowed to leave?

The State Security department has promised to investigate how al-Bashir was allowed to leave the country, despite the interim court order. Many commentators have pointed out that it would have been impossible for Bashir and his entourage to leave the country's busiest military airbase without being escorted by government officials.

The troubled relationship between African countries and the ICC may have contributed to the government's reluctance to hand over the president. Leaders accuse the court of being biased against Africa, and the AU has adopted a policy of not cooperating with the ICC. Al-Bashir appears to have left the country "with the blessing of the African Union" reports the BBC's Nomsa Maseko.

What will happen next?

Al-Bashir is expected touch down in Khartoum later today, leaving behind a diplomatic mess in Pretoria, where the South African government stands accused of flouting international and domestic law. As a member of the International Criminal Court, South Africa is legally obliged to hand over anyone charged by the court and ensure they face justice and allowing him to leave is an "affront to the principle of legality and a show of complete disregard for those seeking justice," writes Wallis in the Daily Maverick.

The South African Home Affairs department could now be held in contempt of court for failing to implement the order, but Maseko argues that it is "unlikely" the government will face any sanctions for allowing Bashir to leave the country.

JUST when the international community was preparing for Geneva 2 to be a damp squib, new and compelling evidence has emerged to support what human rights groups have long argued: that the Syrian government is systematically torturing and murdering detainees.

The 55,000 digital images of approximately 11,000 corpses of detainees were smuggled out of Syria by a former regime police photographer known as 'Caesar'.

He has been interviewed by three distinguished international justice lawyers, who have concluded in a 31-page report that there is clear evidence of "systematic torture and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government". This evidence would support findings of crimes against humanity conducted by the Syrian regime, and possibly war crimes.

So far, calls for President Bashar Assad and his aides to face justice have stumbled over the fact that Syria is not a member of the International Criminal Court. The necessary referral by the UN Security Council - particularly given the presence of Syria's staunch ally Russia - has remained highly unlikely.

These photographs and testimony may finally change that, and will certainly put Assad's negotiating team at the Syrian peace conference in Switzerland on an unexpected backfoot when proceedings start tomorrow.

Claims and counter-claims over rights abuses in Syria, conducted very publicly via the media, have become de rigeur. With so few journalists or humanitarian workers able to do their job properly, verifying information has become a highly politicised process.

Many will make similar accusations about this report, which has Qatar's fingerprints all over it. Not only does the tiny Gulf state support the rebel group that helped 'Caesar' smuggle out the images, but the group of solicitors who commissioned the report was also acting on Qatar's behalf.

Still, such an enormous cache of evidence is indisputable. Further, the report's authors - all internationally respected lawyers with long experience in similar cases - stated that Caesar was "not only credible but that his account was most compelling".

It is also far from the first time that such claims have been made.

According to a Human Rights Watch statement released yesterday, "Security forces have subjected tens of thousands of people to arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment and torture using an extensive network of detention facilities throughout the country."

Ahead of Geneva 2, HRW called for, among other things, the establishment of an independent commission to review detainees' cases, monitor their treatment and ensure their release. To properly pursue its mission, HRW added, the commission should be granted access to all detention facilities.

For most observers of the nearly three-year-old Syrian civil war, such demands will have seemed fair but also utterly unrealistic - until now.

The report states that images of 835 corpses were studied in detail. Sample photographs provided with the report offer a visceral and stomach-lurching footnote: hollowed-out abdomens, jutting hips and exposed flesh bear witness to the immense suffering these people went through.

Of course, such cruelty is not just confined to the walls of Syria's prisons: in cities across the country, medieval siege tactics are being used with great efficacy, with life-saving humanitarian aid regularly being prevented from finding its way to those who need it. News about residents of Yarmouk being shot at by snipers as they forage for leaves to stew in water - a day's meal - should also weigh heavily on those at Geneva 2.

For several months now, it has been very clear that the opposition's main objective at Geneva 2 - "removing the butcher from power" - is redundant. Assad's recent announcement that he sees "no reason" why he shouldn't run in the elections this year puts the final nail in that coffin.

If a political transition is not viable, humanitarian goals must take centre stage. The war will not end tomorrow, and yes, there are a large number of hard-line Islamist groups - also responsible for atrocities - who will answer to no one. But the Syrian government can be held accountable, and it holds the key to addressing many of these issues.

Hopefully, this new evidence will refocus the conference on the immediate, concrete steps that can be taken to help ordinary Syrians whose lives are being torn apart. If the regime was to allow human rights groups to inspect detention facilities, and to facilitate the transport of aid to besieged areas, it would be a good start.