The US will launch a diplomatic campaign aimed at dismantling the International Criminal Court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced [12] July 6. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Rubio wrote that the US would work alongside allied governments to take the court apart "brick by brick, if necessary," using all tools at the government's disposal. He said the campaign’s message to other governments would be a choice of sovereign states over globalism, and pledged that the administration would protect American service members from ICC jurisdiction.
Because the court is a treaty body that only its member states can dissolve, the US lacks the authority to "dismantle" it. The op-ed does not detail specific measures, but a State Department official told Reuters [15] that options under consideration include travel bans, visa revocations, expanded sanctions against the court and affiliated organizations, and diplomatic pressure on member states to withdraw. The official said countries that rely on US security assistance and decline to reject the court’s authority over Americans are likely to face increased scrutiny.
Rubio cited the court's 2020 authorization [16] of an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan, which included possible crimes by US forces, as well as more recent calls by activists and a former ICC prosecutor to treat Trump administration deportations and military strikes as international crimes. According to Reuters, the court has taken no recent steps against US personnel, and since 2021 prosecutors have deprioritized the US role in the Afghanistan investigation in favor of alleged Taliban and Afghan government crimes.
The ICC, established in 2002 under the Rome Statute and seated in The Hague, has 125 states parties, including nearly every US treaty ally in Europe as well as the UK, Japan, South Korea and Australia. The US is not a member. President Bill Clinton signed [17] the Rome Statute in 2000 but declined to submit it to the Senate, and Congress in 2002 passed legislation [18] authorizing the president to use all means necessary [19] to free Americans detained by the court.
The announced campaign departs from the approach of prior administrations of both parties, which maintained US non-membership while supporting international criminal justice in specific cases. The US helped establish the Yugoslavia [20] and Rwanda [21] tribunals in the 1990s (under Democrat Bill Clinton), and abstained from but did not veto [22] the Security Council's referral of Darfur to the ICC in 2005 (under Republican George W. Bush). Washington supported the Security Council's referral of Libya [23] in 2011, expanded its war crimes rewards program [24] to cover ICC fugitives in 2012 (under Democrat Barack Obama), and reportedly [25] shared evidence with the court's investigation of Russian conduct in Ukraine after it issued a 2023 arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin (under Democrat Joe Biden). In 2008, State Department legal adviser John Bellinger said [26] it was "not the policy of the United States to try to kill the ICC."
An ICC spokesperson said the court would not comment at this stage. Last month, three ICC judges sued Trump administration officials over sanctions imposed [27] on them, arguing the measures were unlawful.
From JURIST [28], July 13. Used with permission.
