International Criminal Court: justice under attack

In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged to ‘dismantle’ the International Criminal Court (ICC), the global court of last resort for the gravest human rights crimes. The Trump administration intends to pressure states into quitting the court, threatening sanctions, travel bans, visa restrictions and ‘increased scrutiny’ of states that receive US funding.

Challenging impunity

Established in 2002 following years of civil society advocacy, the ICC prosecutes the worst human rights atrocities, including crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, when national or regional courts can’t or won’t. It prosecutes individuals, and national leaders enjoy no immunity. It has secured several convictions, including of warlords from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali and Rwanda. Among ongoing cases, former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte awaits trial on crimes against humanity charges. Civil society plays a key role in collecting the evidence prosecutions depend on. Filipino women-led groups, for example, have documented thousands of extrajudicial killings.

The court has 125 members, but the USA is among several powerful states, including China, India, Israel and Russia, that have never joined. That hasn’t stopped Rubio raising the spectre of US politicians, soldiers and border patrol officers being dragged before the court, which he brands as the tool of ‘hostile Third World governments’. That could only happen if US personnel committed human rights crimes in the territory of an ICC member state. The inference is that the US government wants a guarantee of impunity wherever it chooses to violate human rights.

US hostility intensified in 2020, when the ICC opened an investigation into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Afghanistan, including those committed by US forces. A current US campaign could also merit the court’s attention. In the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, the US military is bombing boats it claims, without providing evidence, are being used by drug cartels to smuggle fentanyl and other illicit substances to the USA. It started the strikes as a way of building pressure on then Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but has continued them after US forces invaded Venezuela and abducted him, now seemingly with the purpose of communicating US strength and contempt for international rules.

So far, US forces have killed over 200 people, some with no apparent connection to drug trafficking. All are civilians, leaving little doubt the strikes are illegal under international law. Last October, a group of United Nations (UN) human rights experts concluded that the strikes amount to extrajudicial executions. UN human rights chief Volker Türk called for an investigation, saying he believed the campaign violated international law. The USA responded by lining up with Israel, North Korea and Russia to oppose Türk’s second term. Former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo stated that the strikes should be considered crimes against humanity.

The victims include nationals of Colombia, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, all ICC members. The family of one victim, Colombian fisher Alejandro Carranza, has filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The ICC could investigate any strikes carried out in member states’ territorial waters or against vessels registered with them.

Defending Netanyahu

Donald Trump is also determined to defend his prize ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s said as much, undermining Rubio’s lofty rhetoric about sovereignty. In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes against Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, later confirmed to have been killed by Israel. Israel doesn’t recognise the court, but the warrants stand because Palestine does.

The warrant against Netanyahu is back in the headlines because he’s due to visit New York for the annual high-level opening week of the UN General Assembly in September. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has called for his arrest, but the Trump administration has confirmed it will ignore the warrant. This may have fuelled the latest offensive, which goes further than the Trump administration’s 2025 decision to impose sanctions on nine ICC judges and officials. Early in his second presidency, Trump issued an executive order that declared a ‘national emergency’, arguing the court was a threat to the USA and Israel, and pledging sanctions against anyone who takes part in its investigations.

The order was used to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Because US institutions play a key role in the international financial system, people subject to sanctions can be blocked from routine transactions, including using credit and debit cards.

Fearing criminalisation, US-based organisations may feel pressured to end cooperation with the ICC. Last year, two US-based civil society organisations pulled out of the ICC’s annual meeting. Civil society is, however, fighting back. In July, two US groups filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing the sanctions violate constitutional free speech protections.

International system under attack

The Trump administration’s attack on the ICC is part of its broader assault on the international system, and particularly its human rights functions. It takes a pick-and-choose approach of withdrawing from some bodies, defunding others, trying to bend others to its will, forming alternatives it controls, such as the Board of Peace, and showing outright hostility towards those seen to stand in its way.

The USA isn’t the only one. Three military-run Sahel allies – Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – have begun their withdrawal from the ICC, a process that takes a year. They previously quit the Economic Community of West African States, including its Community Court of Justice, leaving victims of human rights atrocities amid jihadist insurgency with no international routes to justice.

Venezuela set the same course under Maduro. Last year the ICC was forced to close its office in Venezuela due to the government’s non-cooperation, and in December parliament voted to repeal the law ratifying the Rome Statute, the treaty through which states accept the court’s jurisdiction. That path hasn’t changed under US-compliant Interim President Delcy Rodríguez, whose government recently declared its withdrawal ‘irrevocable’. The US government has welcomed the decision, which will deny justice to both victims of Maduro’s repression and the families of Venezuelans killed in boat strikes.

States that are leaving the court and those that never joined share a refusal to be held to account. In the name of sovereignty they seek impunity, recasting international law, including long-established treaties such as the Genocide Convention, as hostile foreign interference. Global south states disguise self-interest as anti-colonialism, while the USA makes clear it won’t countenance global south states offering any kind of check on its power.

Others have rallied to the court’s defence. A European Union spokesperson said the bloc ‘stands firm’ behind it. Hungary, which under right-wing nationalist Viktor Orbán had committed to pulling out, reversed that decision under its new government.

But even the court’s supporters display double standards. Several states that welcomed the arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin in 2023 over the abduction of Ukrainian children condemned the one against Netanyahu the following year. And member states have hosted both men without arresting them, in breach of their obligations.

Time to rally round

The court faces this onslaught while currently leaderless. On 24 July, member states voted to remove chief prosecutor Karim Khan following disciplinary proceedings triggered by a sexual abuse complaint from a former staff member. It’s vital that his replacement be a strong and independent leader who can continue the court’s work.

The ICC is under attack by the Trump administration because of its promise to hold the powerful to account. Its member states must defend the principle that no one is above the law by refusing to bow to US pressure.

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