Marco Rubio launches campaign to dismantle international criminal court

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, launched a campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday, claiming that the global tribunal was interfering with US military and law enforcement operations at the risk of American sovereignty.Rubio invoked images of US Border Patrol agents and elected leaders being “dragged before an international court” and tried by judges from around the world in a lengthy op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal Monday.“If we stand idle, all of them will be at the mercy of foreign judges, thousands of miles away – facing the constant risk of prosecution and even imprisonment for the so-called ‘crime’ of defending their own country,” Rubio warned in a companion video posted to X.The state department plan to “dismantle” the ICC will involve pressuring other nations to abandon the court, according to CNN. “Nations that refuse to reject the ICC’s false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny,” an official told the outlet, adding that possible punishments could involve sanctions, travel bans and visa revocations.But three international legal experts described Rubio’s remarks as a mischaracterization of the tribunal’s powers.“The ICC is not claiming jurisdiction over conduct in the United States,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Rubio is dressing up his quest for impunity for American war crimes under the label of national sovereignty, which ignores the sovereign right of other nations to invoke the ICC for crimes committed on their territory.”The international court, headquartered in The Hague, can only investigate crimes committed in states’ that are party to the Rome Statute, the 2002 treaty that established the ICC. The United States has not ratified the treaty, nor has the court opened investigations into crimes committed on American soil.“Trump wants to be able to commit war crimes on the territory of countries that have accepted the court’s jurisdiction – that’s what this is about,” Roth said.At times the Trump administration has celebrated the concept of ICC jurisdiction – welcoming an investigation into Russian war crimes committed into Ukraine, which is a signatory to the Rome Statute.The Office of the ICC prosecutor, led by Karim Khan, opened an investigation into Israel’s conduct in Palestine, which has consented to its investigations there. The court has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, in connection to its war crimes investigation.Six weeks into his second term, Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring a “national emergency” based on what he called the ICC’s “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”, and imposed a raft of sanctions on court officials, including its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, as well as his two deputies and six judges for their investigations into Israel’s conduct in Palestine and US service member activity in Afghanistan.The Trump administration’s sanctions regime expanded throughout 2025 by imposing sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, and three Palestinian human rights groups who have been involved in collecting evidence of possible Israeli war crimes.It’s unclear exactly how Rubio’s latest vow to “dismantle” the ICC might impact the court’s operations moving forward.“Presumably, we will start to hear from foreign counterparts who are pressured to take action against the ICC,” said a former senior US government sanctions official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss politically sensitive matters. “When sanctions work well, you use sanctions to reinforce what you’ve achieved through diplomacy.”It’s rumored that the Trump administration may sanction the tribunal as a whole, the former official said. “It gives you the sense that this is a pre-emptive campaign against any action the ICC might be considering vis-a-vis Venezuela or elsewhere abroad.”If this measure is taken, Americans would not be allowed to work with the ICC and American staff, companies or banks could risk financial penalties or jail time for doing business with the court.“Rubio’s attack doesn’t just underscore US hypocrisy, but undermines access to justice across the globe, from Ukraine to Sudan and could amount to obstruction of justice, a crime under the Rome Statute in and of itself,” Raed Jarrar, Dawn’s advocacy director said in a statement Monday. “It is not the ICC that Rubio is dismantling brick by brick - but the rules-based international order that grew out of the ashes of world war two.”