International Criminal Court stands up to US campaign to dismantle it ‘brick by brick’
Marco Rubio is ramping up pressure on the institution and its staff and urging Washington’s allies to turn their backs on it as well
“America never agreed to a world tribunal that can override our own courts and the Constitution,” wrote U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on July 13 in The Wall Street Journal. He was referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC), of which the U.S. is not a member but which Washington has vowed to “dismantle.”
“Using all the tools at our government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common cause, we will dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary,” Rubio added in that article. Lawyers consulted by EL PAÍS interpret that Washington’s real aim is nothing more than ensuring its own “impunity” for policies based on force.
The ICC, created in 2002 by the Rome Statute with worldwide jurisdiction and 125 signatory countries, is the body that prosecutes those responsible for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. Although both the court and its Office of the Prosecutor declined to comment on the insults and threats from the Donald Trump administration, Tomoko Akane, president of the ICC, used July 17 — the International Day of International Criminal Justice — to issue two reminders. She stressed that the court was created “to end the impunity of those who commit the gravest crimes” and added that the pursuit of justice “is a shared responsibility.”
Despite the difficulties, work continues at an institution based in The Hague (Netherlands) whose eight of 18 judges and three prosecutors have been subject to financial sanctions by Washington since last year.
“Marco Rubio’s propaganda is not grounded in the coherence of arguments but in power,” explains Asier Garrido Muñoz, who was a legal adviser to the ICC, in a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS. Hence, in his view, “the dissonance between what they criticize the court for [the international scope of its investigations] and what they do by force and unilaterally in other countries.” For example, the abduction of Venezuela’s then-president, Nicolás Maduro, on January 3, to put him on trial in the United States.
For the Spanish jurist, Washington’s attack on the ICC is based “on the fallacy that only a national judge can try one of its own citizens.” He offers a simple example to show that this is not so: “It is like saying an American has the right to roam the streets of Pamplona with impunity, committing crimes during the Sanfermines.” He believes Rubio is using “the full rhetorical arsenal of populism to claim that this court is waging a war against the American people, based not on weapons but on statutes and rules.”
Reed Brody, an American lawyer specializing in war crimes, is blunt in his assessment of Washington’s new campaign against the ICC. “Let no one be fooled. This is not about [defending their] sovereignty, it is about impunity,” he writes via WhatsApp.
According to him, Rubio knows perfectly well “that bombing Iran was an act of aggression and that attacking vessels in the Caribbean and killing their occupants without trial amounts to murder.” For that reason, he continues, the secretary of state’s onslaught against the ICC is actually intended as “an insurance policy” to prevent future “accountability for crimes the Trump administration is committing in broad daylight.” Brody adds that Rubio also knows that “sanctioning judges and prosecutors for doing their jobs is, in itself, obstruction of justice.”
The sanctions imposed in 2025 by Trump on 11 ICC jurists not only prevent them from leading a normal life — from paying with a credit card to booking a hotel — but also extend to any entities that cooperate with them. In Rubio’s renewed challenge, further bans on entry to the United States for court personnel are being considered, including visa suspensions, the State Department said in a statement on July 13. The statement also proposed pressuring the ICC’s 125 member states to withdraw from the institution.
“It is an act of propaganda and part of the cultural war that President Trump’s administration, and the far right, have declared on anything that sounds like international cooperation,” says former legal adviser Garrido Muñoz. He answers Rubio’s image of dismantling the ICC “brick by brick” with one of resistance: “Fortunately, the building is made of concrete, metal, and glass,” he jokes.
Paradoxically, Washington contributed in the 1990s to the creation of the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, where genocides took place. That experience was later carried over into the ICC for the prosecution of international crimes, and the 125 states that are party to the Rome Statute have delegated competence to investigate those crimes to that institution. But the United States does not recognize the ICC’s authority.
The U.S. stance has always been contentious, although with periods of relative calm. The administration of Democrat Bill Clinton (1993–2001) participated in drafting the Rome Statute, though it did not ratify it, and during the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden (2021–2025) the government worked with the court discreetly, even on financial matters.
“The ICC symbolizes the attribution of a power traditionally tied to national sovereignty: the power to try people,” Garrido Muñoz says. He indicates that this is “a power of the liberal order that the Trump administration attacks because it considers it harmful to its national interests, which include acting with impunity anywhere on the planet.” He concludes by asserting that the ICC “is a big prize for this administration.”
The ICC only steps in when a state cannot or will not do so itself. But it is authorized to prosecute nationals of nonmember countries when those nationals have committed crimes on the territory of a state that is party to the court.
Thus, for example, the court has issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza — because Palestine has been a member of the ICC since 2015, three years after being designated a nonmember observer state by the UN — and another for Russian President Vladimir Putin for crimes against humanity related to the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
“That is why Rubio’s reasoning is absurd,” says Garrido Muñoz. “Jurisdiction in international law is not only a state’s authority over its own citizens but also territorial.” That is why, he says, “if the person we mentioned earlier commits crimes in Pamplona, they can be tried in Spain for those acts.” And if the offense is genocide, war crimes, or military aggression, Spain can delegate jurisdiction to the ICC.
Despite the sanctions and new challenges, the ICC’s work continues and last Thursday judges unanimously confirmed the 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity brought by the Office of the Prosecutor against Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri, a former member of the Libyan militia Al Radaa (Special Deterrence Force). He is accused of overseeing or committing the offenses at Mitiga prison in Libya between 2014 and 2020. A trial of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on alleged crimes against humanity in his anti-drug campaign is also expected to open in November.
More than ever in its 24-year history, the court’s future depends on the level of commitment from the countries that support it. Because, in addition to those prompted by the United States, there are other tremors: three Sahel countries in Africa — Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso — each marked by terrorist violence and serious human rights abuses, have begun procedures to withdraw from the Rome Statute. There may be other departures. Depending on their dependence on the United States, some states may consider reducing contributions to the budget that keeps the court operating.
“Until 2024, the ICC pursued almost exclusively Africans and enemies of the West, such as Vladimir Putin. And the West applauded,” Reed Brody recalls. “When the same law was applied to a U.S. ally [referring to Netanyahu], Washington decided to strangle the court,” he emphasizes. He says the ICC “is not punished for its failures but for its impartiality.”
At the end of her International Day of International Criminal Justice message, Judge Akane said: “The ICC stands firm in its mission to deliver justice to victims of the gravest crimes, even in the most difficult moments.”
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