They thought they’d enjoy the festival, maybe a waffle and a Hoegaarden. Instead, the two Israeli soldiers were detained and questioned by Belgian police after facing allegations of war crimes stemming from the Hind Rajab Foundation, an organization set up to track soldiers allegedly implicated in atrocities committed during their service in Gaza.

While no allegations against the Israeli soldiers have been tested, let alone proven, in court, their detention is part of a pattern: at least twelve complaints over alleged war crimes have reportedly been issued in Brazil, Thailand, the Netherlands, Serbia, Ireland, Cyprus, and elsewhere. Is detaining suspects when they travel the future of international justice in Gaza and elsewhere? With bodies like the International Criminal Court (ICC) under siege and limited in their capacities, it is certainly a part of it.

It is troubling enough that perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are rarely held accountable. It is made that much more offensive when those suspected of committing such atrocities enjoy the privilege of freely traveling abroad. In some instances, however, those moments also offer opportunities to hold perpetrators of atrocities to account.

The system of international justice, headlined by the ICC, is both critically important and incapable of comprehensively addressing international crimes committed in Gaza. We can debate whether international law is in decline or more relevant than ever before. But what isn’t up for debate is whether the ICC has been able to deter, let alone hold accountable, perpetrators of mass atrocities on any side of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. It has not. With every passing day, more Palestinians are murdered, fewer have enough food to eat, less of Gaza is inhabitable, and Israel’s right-wing government expands the war and adopts plans to fully occupy the Strip.

Impunity for the litany of atrocities committed in Gaza appears to be business-as-usual for most states. While some, including a group of 26 mostly Western capitals, have condemned the starvation of Gazans, settler violence, and plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza, they have done little (in most instances, nothing) to support the only international court capable of prosecuting these atrocities, the ICC. Senior officials from some of those very states – the United Kingdom and Canada, for example – have instead threatened the Court if it charged Israeli officials. Meanwhile, influential Western media outlets propose that the perpetrators investigate themselves.

Many Western states have also remained silent as the Trump administration volleys sanctions against ICC staff for daring to do their job: investigating international crimes without fear or favour. I have studied the ICC and the US-ICC relationship for over a decade, and can safely say that the sanctions, which may soon target the institution as a whole, have diminished the Court and the morale of its staff. Are there good reasons to criticize the ICC? Sure. Does it desperately need reform? Very much so. Are all of its decisions productive or correct? No. But the fact that the institution can and should be improved shouldn’t distract from unequivocally condemning unwarranted attacks on the ICC or from protecting its staff. After all, throttling the ICC over its work on Palestine, the U.S. and others will also cripple the Court’s ability to investigate the atrocities of others, including the Maduro regime in Venezuela, Russia in Ukraine, or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Still, while states should double-down on support for the ICC, it is also important not to view the Court as more than it is. The institution was designed to be limited, capable of only prosecuting a small number of cases at any given time. 

So, with states reluctant to meaningfully support the ICC’s work over Gaza, who can we turn to? The answer is… states. But in a different way.

Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, national authorities can investigate and prosecute international crimes even when they are committed abroad by foreigners against foreigners. Expert groups have pointed out that there are a growing number of such prosecutions around the world. With no international court available to prosecute atrocities committed during Syria’s civil war, some states stepped up, invoked universal jurisdiction, and prosecuted dozens of Syrian perpetrators. There have also been recent prosecutions of perpetrators from Iran, Liberia, Rwanda, Belarus, The Gambia, and others. When more comprehensive accountability comes online – through the creation of a hybrid court or by the exercise of jurisdiction of the ICC over a particular situation – these universal jurisdiction cases can contribute critical jurisprudence, thereby streamlining future justice efforts. In this context, it is notable that the cases of the Israeli soldiers who visited Belgium were “referred” to the ICC by Belgian authorities.

At the same time, universal jurisdiction cases have the power not only to achieve accountability but, critically, to disrupt criminality and the freedoms of perpetrators. There are efforts to do just that in relation to atrocities committed in Gaza. In addition to the arrests in Belgium, in January 2025, an Israel reservist fled Brazil after a judge ordered police to investigate him for alleged war crimes.

That list may soon grow. In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has opened a ‘structural investigation’ into war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed in the “Hamas-Israel war”. Such structural investigations focus on the contexts in which atrocities are committed, rather than specific perpetrators, and the RCMP insists that it has not opened any criminal investigations to date. But they are collecting evidence at a time when patience with Israeli atrocities is, rightfully, wearing thin. And if properly executed, the witness testimony and open-source evidence such structural probes collect can contribute to subsequent criminal prosecutions in Canadian courts, those of an ally, or at the ICC.

The possibility of universal jurisdiction cases relating to Israeli atrocities in Gaza has not been lost on Israeli observers. According to Israeli legal analyst Yuval Yoaz, for example,

Some Israeli legal experts believe that, in addition to the known arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, there are already other warrants against Israeli officials that have been issued secretly – whether by the ICC or by countries waiting for these Israelis to set foot on their soil so they can arrest them.

Of course, universal jurisdiction – like the ICC – cannot alone offer comprehensive justice. Many universal jurisdiction cases fail because perpetrators don’t show up, because of legal carve-outs (relating to the nationality of victims or perpetrators, for example), or because they require political approval which is not forthcoming. By its nature, universal jurisdiction is piecemeal and opportunistic. It only works when a suspect enters the country, solid evidence of wrongdoing has been collected, and political and legal authorities have the integrity and courage to act on it. But piecemeal justice is infinitely better than wholesale impunity and, as noted above, it holds the potential to contribute to more thorough accountability efforts in the future.

At the same time, the evidence needed to initiate prosecutions is increasingly easier to find. That’s because perpetrators often carry evidence of their own wrongdoing with them and post it proudly on social media. Numerous prosecutions of Syrians, including ISIS fighters, were successful because they relied on evidence that the accused had themselves shared with the world. A new war crimes case in Canada against an ISIS fighter is based on a propaganda video posted by the terrorist group. The aforementioned case against the Israeli reservist in Brazil was reportedly built on the soldiers’ own social media posts. Unsurprisingly, the Israeli military has sought to clamp down on the use of social media by its soldiers, with the explicit aim of protecting them from being investigated abroad for war crimes.

Victims and survivors of intentional starvation, murder, hostage taking, and genocidal violence in Gaza have not seen their tormentors held responsible. But the use of national authorities and courts to investigate and prosecute alleged perpetrators with enough hubris to believe they can travel whenever and wherever they want holds great promise, especially at time when the ICC is under attack. Indeed and ironically, the impunity perpetrators believe they enjoy is what makes them susceptible to being caught.

Universal jurisdiction has the potential to shrink the space of denial and the movement of perpetrators. Doing so matters. Trying matters. After all, there is justice in the pursuit of justice.