But now, with America exerting enormous financial and political pressure on the court, this may all fall away.
In an effort to protect Israel’s leaders, over the past few months the Trump administration has undertaken an all-out assault on the ICC, imposing draconian targeted sanctions on its prosecutor and his two deputies, six judges, one U.N. special rapporteur and three NGOs accused of aiding the court’s investigation into and prosecution of crimes in Gaza.
Threatening judges and prosecutors with travel bans and asset freezes isn’t just wrong — it betrays the U.S.’s proud, if uneven, history of leading the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II, and its help in addressing subsequent atrocities in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. It’s also an odd way to defend American sovereignty, particularly when — as Israel has done — Washington is free to argue its jurisdictional objections in The Hague.
Concerning as the existing measures are, the discussed new sanctions on the ICC as a whole would go even further, barring banks, software providers and other vendors from servicing the institution, effectively shutting down its operations. If these sanctions were to result in the court’s destruction, the losses would be incalculable.
Detainees like former President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines — accused of orchestrating mass killing — could go free. Investigations and prosecutions for abuses by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Myanmar, Ukraine and Venezuela would all come to a halt. Thousands of survivors, advocates, doctors and journalists the world over would lose their last and only recourse for redress. And the cause of a world governed by law rather than violence, however imperfectly, would be set back.
America’s on-again, off-again history with the ICC notwithstanding — it has never joined the court, and has alternately both helped and blocked it — this possibility is shocking. And the relative quiescence of others, including many of the court’s 125 member countries from Europe, Africa and Latin America, is disappointing — particularly when international stages, such as the U.N. General Assembly and various fora in each of the world’s major regions, provide ready-made opportunities to lift up the ICC’s mission and work.