The ICJ ruled almost exactly as the experts predicted - yes, genocide is a plausible accusation. Yes, provisional measures are warranted. No call for a ceasefire.
I've seen some takes on the ceasefire part that are very compelling. The ICJ did order that Israel "take all measures within its power to prevent" acts of genocide including "killing members of the group" - where "the group" is Palestinians in Gaza. That this is effectively an order for an immediate ceasefire. And that you do not order a "ceasefire" when one of the actors is a non-state actor - i.e. it's not a war, but a police action.
I don't buy it. The judges know that their ruling is going to be interpreted by the state actors. South Africa literally asked for a ceasefire as part of their request. That it was not addressed directly had to be intentional. Also, "ceasefire" has been used with relation to non-state actors before - this is not an uncommon formulation - although, maybe there's international law reasons why I'm wrong about that. IANAL.
Regardless, if ICJ wanted a "ceasefire" but couldn't use that specific word because it has specific international law implications - they could have said so. And they didn't. They dodged the question - which to be fair is better than them explicitly saying that they are NOT ordering a ceasefire. But knowing that Israel and the US will interpret this in a manner that maximizes Palestinian casualties means that by not directly addressing it, they didn't call for it.
Now if you're the US or Israel and your official position is that what's happening in Gaza is absolutely NOT genocide and that any such accusations are meritless and likely antisemitic - you can basically continue as you were. The US and Israel are going to claim that they have already and always been acting in accordance with this. That they currently are and have always done everything within their power to prevent genocide. That's their position. So unless the ICJ explicitly said - "no more military operations in Gaza" - then military operations will continue and those pushing for death and destruction will claim to be following the order.
Ideally, I would have liked the ICJ ruling to have used the literal exact language of the Leahy Laws. That "there is credible information implicating Israeli military units of gross violations of human rights." That would have been perfect - and possibly better than a call for a ceasefire. But what we got was pretty darned strong and it will cost the US and Israel a lot when they go against it. The reporting requirement is a doozy too - ensuring that we get a new news cycle on genocide a week before Super Tuesday has gotta be "suboptimal" for Biden.
UPDATE: Apparently noting that Israel's ad hoc judge saying that "1,200 innocent civilians" were killed on October 7 is misinformation is a touchy subject. Here's an article about the death toll from October 7. 373 people are identified as security forces - including 305 IDF soldiers. IDF soldiers are now "innocent civilians". That's not even the most galling part of this lie.
The original count was 1,400 - which they revised down to "around 1,200", which was later clarified to be 1,139. Meaning to get to 1,200 - you need to include 61 deaths that they excluded in the revision. Do you know why they revised the number down? Because some of the charred bodies they were counting were Hamas terrorist gunmen. IOW, the Israeli judge in an effort to "give a complete account of the immediate context" categorized 61 Hamas terrorists as "innocent civilians". And we're talking about Hamas gunmen that participated in the attack of October 7.
Anyways, I got called an antisemite for pointing this out. To be fair, the guy who did it has called me an antisemite before - as part of the set-up for a joke about Yiddish or something - so wevs.
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