(AFP) – The United States on Monday announced a sweeping campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC) that could include further sanctions and other measures, accusing it of posing “an intolerable threat to US sovereignty.” The Trump administration said it would pressure other countries to withdraw from the court, marking a sharp escalation in the US effort to isolate the Hague-based institution and starve it of political and financial support.
“The ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts and the force of so-called international law,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a video statement. The State Department said in a statement that the campaign will “systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.” The US has previously targeted individual court officials it deems a threat to US interests, but the new “whole of government” campaign will pressure other nations “to withdraw from the ICC and cut off any financial support to the court,” a State Department official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
– ‘Threat to America’ –
In February 2025, shortly after President Donald Trump returned to office, Washington slapped asset freezes and travel bans on several ICC officials over an arrest warrant issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza. But on Monday, the State Department focused on what it called the ICC’s “intolerable threat to US sovereignty,” saying the court “claims the authority to prosecute and even imprison American servicemen and officials operating on behalf of America’s national interest.”
“Americans never signed up for this, and all American presidents since the ICC’s ratification have maintained that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over Americans,” the department’s statement said. Rubio added that the ICC “threatens every aspect of our political and legal system,” and that it has moved from being a “narrow backstop” charged with prosecuting “only the gravest offenses…when a nation’s courts were unable.”
In addition to levying further travel and financial restrictions on people associated with the court, the State Department official said: “We will watch with interest which nations join ranks with us against this threat to Americans who are willing to risk their lives to protect others.” “While the calls are intended to highlight the ICC’s abuses and the risks posed to Americans and other nations, nations that refuse to reject the ICC’s false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny,” the official said.
US reservations about the court predate the Trump administration. The US, like Israel, has not ratified the international treaty that established the ICC and it has rejected the court’s jurisdiction in cases involving the US or Israel.
– Judges’ lawsuit –
Three ICC judges sanctioned by the Trump administration filed a lawsuit in June against the president and other senior US officials, arguing that the measures imposed on them were unlawful. In a complaint filed in New York, Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, Uganda’s Solomy Balungi Bossa, and Benin’s Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou said the sanctions were intended to “exert extrajudicial pressure.” Established in 2002, the ICC prosecutes individuals accused of the gravest atrocities, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Russia is also not a member of the ICC. Its President Vladimir Putin has been the subject of an ICC arrest warrant since March 2023.
– Léon BRUNEAU
© 2024 AFP
