The United Nations says the International Criminal Court (ICC) remained a critical cog in the international justice system while the European Union called attacks or threats against the Court’s staff and those cooperating with it “unacceptable.”
Those statements came in response to an announcement by the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio of campaign to dismantle what he referred to as the ICC’s threat to US sovereignty.
The US is not a States Party to the Rome Statue.
The State Department announced a sweeping whole-of-government response to systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American military personnel or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.
In just its latest punitive actions against the Hague-based Court that seeks to address atrocity crimes around the world, the US says the Court poses an intolerable threat to American sovereignty that it never signed up for. Listen to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“When the ICC was born 24 years ago, they told us that it was merely a narrow backstop, a global court that would step in to prosecute only the gravest offenses. Things like genocide and war crimes, and only when a nation’s courts were unable to prosecute them on their own. But the truth is, it was something far more radical and extreme. It was a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited. The danger of this global court has only continued to grow. Today, it threatens every aspect of our political and legal system.”
The Trump administration escalated actions against the Court after it issued warrants of arrest for senior Israeli leadership in November 2024 over alleged war crimes in Gaza and after the Court’s Appeal chamber in 2020 authorised an investigation into potential war crimes allegedly committed by US military personnel and CIA operatives in Afghanistan in 2003/04.
Afghanistan is a States Party to the Rome Statute and the Court thus has jurisdiction over alleged crimes on that territory regardless of the nationality of the alleged perpetrators.
The US has already sanctioned the Court’s prosecutors and judges involved in such investigations arguing that Americans never consented to the Court’s jurisdiction.
Rubio said, “The American people never agreed to any of this, and they never will read the words of our Declaration of Independence. We fought a revolution against a foreign power, transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses. Independence is our birthright. We will never let foreign bureaucrats take that away from us. This administration will not sit by, as the ICC and its allies seek to threaten our people if they believe they can deprive us of our sovereignty.We will teach them the full meaning of American resolve.”
Actions under consideration include diplomatic calls to foreign nations to highlight ICC abuses; pressuring countries that enjoy the US Security umbrella to reject the ICC’s purported authority to prosecute Americans, increased scrutiny of nations that refuse while relying on US assistance, additional visa revocations and travel bans for ICC personnel and increased sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organisations.
The UN Secretary-General’s Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, “While the ICC is an organization that is separate from the secretariat and the UN, it remains for us a critical cog in the international justice system. It is supported by a vast number of member states and it helps bring accountability for serious crimes. International law, the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, were created by sovereign member states. And they have brought protection, they have brought relief to millions of people. And they are, as the secretary-general has often said, under threat and under attack.”
A European Union Spokesperson said they remained strongly committed to international criminal justice and the fight against impunity and that attacks or threats against the courts elected officials, personnel or those cooperating with the court, were simply not acceptable.
The ICC said in response to our enquiry that it was an international judicial institution which carried out its mandate independently and impartially in accordance with its founding treaty, the Rome Statute, ratified by 125 States parties.
About the Author
