Across two wars fought in 2022 and 2023, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court have issued orders, warrants, and advisory opinions in real time—and watched most of them go unenforced. The pattern, traced in a new legal analysis, points to three structural causes: political primacy, evidentiary limits, and jurisdictional narrowness.

How did the ICJ handle Ukraine v. Russia?

The litigation began before the February 2022 full-scale invasion. Cases had already been filed at the ICJ, the European Court of Human Rights, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

After the 2022 invasion, Ukraine filed under the Genocide Convention. On March 16, 2022, the ICJ issued provisional measures ordering Russia to "immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine." Russia never implemented the order. On Feb. 2, 2024, the Court declined jurisdiction over Ukraine's claim that Russia's invocation of the Genocide Convention violated the treaty, retaining only the question of whether Ukraine was committing genocide in the Donbas. On Dec. 5, 2025, the Court accepted jurisdiction over Russia's counter-claim alleging Ukrainian genocide.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on March 17, 2023. On June 25, 2025, Ukraine and the Council of Europe signed an agreement establishing a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression. Thousands of individual applications remain pending against Russia at the ECtHR.

What has the ICJ and ICC ordered in the Gaza conflict?

After October 7, 2023, South Africa filed a genocide case at the ICJ in December 2023. The Court issued provisional measures requiring Israel to refrain from acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention and to facilitate humanitarian aid—stopping short of ordering an end to the war. The Court declined to extend measures to Rafah in language later described as deliberately ambiguous.

On July 19, 2024, an ICJ advisory opinion demanded Israel end its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory "as rapidly as possible." A second advisory opinion on Oct. 22, 2025, required Israel to resume cooperation with UNRWA. Israel rejected both; the United States rejected the UNRWA ruling.

The ICC Prosecutor sought arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in May 2024. The Court issued the warrants in November 2024. Hungary announced its withdrawal from the ICC in April 2025 around Netanyahu's visit. The Pre-Trial Chamber rejected extermination charges against the Israeli leaders; other counts remain under appeal.

Nicaragua's case against Germany at the ICJ, alleging arms transfers facilitated genocide, preceded Germany's August 2025 partial arms suspension. The causal link to the October 2025 ceasefire remains unestablished.

Why have these interventions fallen short?

Three structural factors emerge:

• Political primacy. Peace deals reflect military and diplomatic realities. The Trump 28-point Ukraine plan reaffirms Ukrainian sovereignty in name but recognizes de facto Russian title over Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk, and bars Ukraine from NATO. It omits comprehensive reparations. The Gaza plan—ratified by Security Council Resolution 2803—ties Israeli withdrawal to hostage release and demilitarization, falling short of the ICJ's call for an unconditional end.

• Real-time evidentiary limits. Provisional measures are decided on short timelines with minimal fact-finding. The Netanyahu and Gallant warrants relied on claims of a catastrophic food situation in early 2024 that proved contested. Famine thresholds in Gaza were reached, if at all, more than a year after those events.

• Jurisdictional narrowness. The ICJ applies some instruments, not others. The ICC reaches some parties, not all. The result is selective-justice claims from states who see themselves targeted.

What does this mean for practitioners?

Counsel advising states in active armed conflict should treat international court orders as diplomatic and reputational instruments, not enforcement tools. Successes come in shaping third-party positions—Germany's partial arms suspension—and in laying groundwork for post-war accountability. That accountability typically arrives only after the fighting stops.