Yet again it’s the biggest news in our part of the world since, well, since the last big news. International Criminal Court judges issued three arrest warrants on Thursday 21 November against Israel’s prime minister, the former defence minister and the head of the Hamas armed wing.

So what do we have here? The judges use “reasonable grounds to believe” as their standard of proof. And the charges are around deliberate policies of starvation and inflicting suffering on the civilian population of Gaza on the Israeli side – that’s in relation to the year-plus assault on Gaza in which tens of thousands have died and where the UN is warning of famine – and for the Palestinian, it’s murder, extermination, torture and rape in relation to the attack on Israel killing more than a 1000 people and kidnapping hostages.

If you are an ICC-watcher then you know it will only go further if the suspects turn up in court. That’s not going to happen any time soon, so…who knows whether it would ever end up at trial.

What we will be watching is the reaction of states – both members of the ICC and not – and what support the ICC can rally. Be warned, there is going to be a huge backlash.

To talk through some of the issues, we caught up with Sergey Vasiliev professor at the Open University in the Netherlands.

This podcast has been produced as part of a partnership with JusticeInfo.net, an independent website in French and English covering justice initiatives in countries dealing with serious violence. It is a media outlet of Fondation Hirondelle, based in Lausanne, Switzerland.