ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ordering ceasefire

What's the ICJ's actual ability to enforce this? "Orders" sounds like they have some sort of weight to throw around if Israel doesn't comply, but I'm not familiar with the ICJ or what possible consequences could arise if Israel simply decided it was going to do what it wanted.

None, but what this does is create a rather significant pressure, one of many. If it didn't, you wouldn't see so much defense of Israeli state action.

In theory i think they are supposed to ask the security council to step in if the order is ignored. Which would be unlikely to do anything, so nothing.

I think its likely israel will comply. The order is pretty weak and mostly stuff israel already claims to be doing. It wouldn't be worth the PR hassle to ignore it.

Israel's government doesn't care about PR hassle from the usual suspect. We may notice that they've had plenty of that lately and it did not stop them at all.

Even if doing what the ICJ wants is easy, there's a strong reason not to (from their perspective) - it implies the ICJ should be obeyed and legitimizes them. But why should Israel do that? It's just another leftie NGO from Netenyahu's perspective. Start following what those guys want and soon they will have to do nothing even as Hamas attacks again and again.

> What's the ICJ's actual ability to enforce this?

Zero, the same as most courts.

Enforcement is a matter for (ordinarily) the Security Council, or, in the case of deadlock, potentially the GA acting under Uniting for Peace. Well, decisions on enforcement; actual enforcement is left to individual UN members, acting on direction of those UN bodies.

Note that enforcement in practice is often a problem, as with the provisional measures adopted against Russia in the Ukraine v. Russia genocide case.

Am I to understand then that a member of the UN could decide that intervene? Or would they need to be “allowed” to intervene on behalf of the ICJ?

> Am I to understand then that a member of the UN could decide that intervene?

Unilateral intervention against genocide is possible and arguably legal even without an ICJ ruling, but ordinarily the preferred method would be sanction from the UN via a Security Council resolution, or by a General Assembly resolution from an emergency special session called to address a Security Council deadlock.

> I think its likely israel will comply.

Comply with "Don't genocide"? At best, they'll argue semantics while they keep doing what they've always done.

Nevermind. I read the article:

> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the fact that the court was willing to discuss the genocide charges was a “mark of shame that will not be erased for generations.” He vowed to press ahead with the war.

> Zero, the same as most courts

Well, Israel is a treaty signatory. That means an ICJ ruling is executable under Israeli law.

That means jack shit right now. But every action taken hereonforth, by leadership or command or individual soldiers, carries with it the burden of future prosecution.

> Hamas attacks again and again.

Considering how reliant Netenyahu's political career was/is on Hamas continuing to exist it's likely that's going to happen anyway. An actual long-term solution would be a huge blow to all of the right.

A mark of shame for whom is left to the reader to interpret.

They have already said they will continue their operation in Gaza, _despite_ the ICJ

Well yes. They claim they are not genociding and that they have no intention to genocide, so they aren't going to change that.

Its also not like this is a totally unreasonable conclusion either. Lots of international law scholars think israel is likely to win the case overall unless some bombshell happens.

Israel is going to balance the pr risk vs other risks and goals. They might care about pr less than other countries, but they aren't going to take a PR loss if there is no corresponding benefit.

If israel wanted to deligetimize the ICJ they wouldn't have participated in the case in the first place. Now that they have sent lawyers, appointed an ad hoc judge, its too late tobpretend they think it is illigetiment.