Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The US Secretary of State is urging other countries to join in.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) was created in 1998 and came into existence in 2002.
According to the United Nations International Law Fellowship Programme, the court was established to prosecute crimes such as genocide and to complement national courts.
But not everyone supports the ICC. In fact, the US is now vowing to dismantle the court.
Brick by brick
On Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a major campaign to shut down the International Criminal Court. He wants it gone.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Rubio accused the court of waging a silent war.
He wrote that the ICC is “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles,” but with “the force of so-called international law.”
Now, the US is calling on its partners to walk away from the court entirely. Rubio vowed that Washington would “dismantle the ICC,” “brick by brick, if necessary,” using sanctions and travel bans.
Pay to play
This new campaign marks a major escalation in the White House’s ongoing fight with the court.
CNN reported that US officials are actively calling foreign governments to demand that they withdraw their funding and membership.
Those that do not comply might face serious consequences. A State Department official warned that “Nations that refuse to reject the ICC’s false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny,” according to CNN.
The pressure is not just financial. The official added that nations hosting US troops or enjoying American protection must reject the court’s power to prosecute US service members. “We will watch with interest which nations join ranks with us,” the official noted.
A rules war
The fight has triggered fierce pushback from human rights groups. Rubio claimed in his op-ed that the court is run by “leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments.”
He also dismissed claims from an advocacy group called Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which wanted the court to look into US actions in Iran.
The group’s executive director, Omar Shakir, told CNN that Rubio is targeting the entire global system. Shakir warned that “It is not the ICC that Rubio is dismantling brick by brick,” but rather “the rules-based international order that grew out of the ashes of World War II.”
