US looks to extract thorn in its side

The US administration no longer seeks merely to oppose the International Criminal Court. It now wants to dismantle it.

In a signed article published by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised to take apart the court "brick by brick, if necessary". That marks a striking escalation in Washington's long-running hostility toward the international institution that has more than 120 members.

Sanctioning individual entities is one thing. Pressuring governments to withdraw from the court, threatening to cut assistance to countries that refuse, and mobilizing a "whole-of-government" campaign to isolate an international tribunal is something else entirely.

The explanation offered by the US administration is straightforward. The ICC, it argues, has overstepped its authority, infringed upon the United States' sovereignty and become a political weapon wielded against the US and Israel.

But that account leaves out the crucial question.

Why now?

The answer lies less in abstract constitutional principle than in concrete legal exposure. The ICC has moved from being a theoretical irritant to becoming a potential source of legal scrutiny for two of Washington's most sensitive interests: the conduct of US military operations abroad and the actions of Israel, the US' closest partner in the Middle East.

The court's investigation into alleged war crimes committed by US personnel in Afghanistan has irritated successive administrations. Its decision to pursue legal action involving Israeli leaders has transformed irritation into confrontation. What had long been viewed as an inconvenient institution has suddenly become, in Washington's eyes, an institution capable of imposing reputational and legal costs on the US and its allies.

Seen in that light, the campaign against the ICC is less a defense of sovereignty than an exercise in risk management.

The US administration insists that international judges should not exercise jurisdiction over nationals of states that have not joined the Rome Statute.

Yet while Rubio decries the prosecution of US nationals by international judges as an assault on US sovereignty, Washington has shown no such scruples when bringing foreign leaders — such as Nicolas Maduro, whose transfer to US custody his lawyers call an abduction — before US courts. The question is why jurisdiction from The Hague is an outrage to the US, while jurisdiction from Washington is an emblem of "justice" to the world. To many, the distinction seems less about law than about power: international courts are legitimate only when they target the US' enemies, not when they scrutinize the US itself.

What is even harder to defend than the hypocrisy is the method Washington has chosen to try and dismantle the court.

The US administration has chosen coercion. Countries that depend on US military cooperation or development assistance are now being asked to withdraw from the ICC or face consequences. Visa restrictions, sanctions, diplomatic pressure and aid reductions are to be instruments not merely of disagreement but of institutional demolition.

There is an irony that Washington appears unwilling to acknowledge. The US has long described itself as the principal architect and defender of the rules-based international order established after World War II. Yet it now seeks to dismantle one of the few international judicial institutions precisely because that institution has begun examining cases involving US interests.

Rules, it seems, remain indispensable — until they become inconvenient.

US exceptionalism has always rested on a delicate proposition: that the US should lead the international order without necessarily being constrained by any of that order's institutions. That contradiction has now become policy.

Rubio describes the ICC as a "threat" to US sovereignty. But sovereignty has rarely been understood to include the right to compel other sovereign states to abandon an international organization they voluntarily joined. Using diplomatic leverage and financial pressure to persuade governments to withdraw from a multilateral institution is itself an assertion of hegemonic power, however one views the court's merits.

None of this requires romanticizing the ICC. The court has been criticized for inconsistent enforcement, selective prosecutions and institutional shortcomings. Those criticisms deserve serious consideration.

But dismantling it is something else entirely.

The US administration's campaign is not primarily about improving international justice. It is about ensuring that so-called "international justice" cannot reach cases involving the US or its closest ally. The progression from targeted sanctions against individual officials during Donald Trump's first term to an organized effort to break apart the institution reveals a strategy that is preventive as much as punitive.

History is unlikely to remember this episode as a debate over legal jurisdiction alone. Instead, it will be remembered as a test of whether great powers accept legal constraints only when those constraints apply to others — and whether force and coercion have become Washington's only way of settling disputes.