Many of those watching the horrors unfold in Gaza have hung their highest hopes and deepest frustrations on the world’s apex courts: the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Nearly two years into the war, these judicial bodies have neither prevented atrocities from occurring nor punished perpetrators. Journalists and activists amassed ample evidence documenting war crimes committed by the Israeli military, and yet its soldiers continue to operate in Gaza with impunity.

It’s a mistake to laser-focus on the ICJ, established by the United Nations Charter to settle disputes between states, and the ICC, which prosecutes individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression under the Rome Statute. Doing so misunderstands and overemphasizes their role. “The ICC takes up way too much oxygen in discussions of international criminal justice and accountability,” the International Crisis Group’s Brian Finucane told me. The myopia also misses important work happening in national courts. It’s here at the domestic level where Palestinians have the best chance to see justice, as nation-states attempt to fulfill their international obligations through homegrown investigations and prosecutions.

In many ways, the hopes and frustrations lavished on the ICC and ICJ are understandable. “When people think of international trials, they think of Nuremberg and the signal to the international community that these are the most serious crimes that are being perpetrated,” said Jake Romm, a human rights lawyer and U.S. representative for the Hind Rajab Foundation. Gaza is exactly the kind of grave situation for which these courts were founded, and they have not been completely dormant since October 7, 2023. In early 2024, after South Africa brought a case against Israel alleging that it violated the U.N. Genocide Convention, the ICJ issued several rounds of provisional measures ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts, halt military action, and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid. In November that same year, the ICC put out arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (along with three top Hamas commanders) for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.

But the wheels of justice in general turn slowly, and, for Palestinians, it can often feel like the wheels of international justice in particular seldom turn at all. The ICJ likely won’t rule on the genocide case until the end of 2027 at the earliest. And while the prospects of seeing Netanyahu or Gallant in the dock at The Hague were always dim, they look even dimmer after Hungary, a state party to the Rome Statute,........

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