A Court for Enemies, Not for Allies

In 2002, the Bush administration "unsigned" the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the International Criminal Court. That same year, Congress passed the American Service-Members' Protection Act, which authorized military force to free any American held by the court and barred US cooperation with its investigations. The goal was exemption: the United States would not submit its citizens to the court's jurisdiction. It would not show up. The Trump administration's campaign against the ICC, launched this week, has a different aim. The State Department declared its intention to "systematically disable the ICC's ability to operate" ^[1]. The difference is the difference between refusing to appear in court and burning down the courthouse. The escalation from exemption to dismantlement has proceeded in three steps. First, the Department of Justice formally rejected all ICC jurisdiction over US persons. In a letter from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the department called the court "lawless and illegitimate" and asserted it has no authority over Americans anywhere in the world ^[2].

The ICC has no jurisdiction over U.S. persons — anywhere in the world — and any attempt to assert such authority is illegitimate, unlawful and a direct affront to the sovereignty of the United States. — Todd Blanche

Second, the Treasury imposed sanctions on individual ICC judges — economic measures that block access to banking, credit cards, health insurance, and online platforms. Three judges sued in Manhattan federal court, describing the sanctions in their complaint with a phrase that captures the severity of the tactic.

Being subjected to such sanctions under IEEPA is tantamount to the financial death penalty. — Kimberly Prost

Third, the administration is pressuring allies to withdraw from the court and cease financial support, leveraging security assistance and military presence as leverage ^[1]. Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the campaign not as a policy disagreement but as an existential defense of sovereignty. The tools — economic sanctions, travel bans, visa revocations — are the ones the United States has historically reserved for hostile states. Now they are aimed at judges and prosecutors of an international court. While the administration works to disable the ICC, it continues to impose its own unilateral sanctions on Sudanese actors in a civil war now entering its fourth year ^[3]. The same administration imposing sanctions on Sudan is working to disable the only institution that could impose accountability through legal process rather than unilateral decree. The goal is not to abandon international law. It is to create a one-way system: law that binds adversaries like Sudan and Russia, but not the United States and its allies. The cost of this design is not abstract. The ICC's deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, announced last week that the court has gathered evidence linking Rapid Support Forces leaders to massacres in Darfur ^[4].

We have now found concrete evidence that links what is happening on the ground through linkage evidence to specific persons in leadership mode. — Nazhat Shameem

The ICC is the institution positioned to prosecute that case. The campaign to "systematically disable" it would shut down an active genocide investigation. Disabling the court does not merely protect American officials and those of its allies from accountability — it extinguishes the mechanism for atrocities committed by anyone, anywhere. Rubio's framing makes no mention of this cost. A genocide investigation in Darfur is at risk of going dark, and the country still sanctioning the perpetrators is the one working to disable the court that could prosecute them. The campaign does not distinguish between a warrant that troubles Washington and a warrant for the commanders of a massacre. It would extinguish both.