It won’t be Trump who kills the ICC

Published 9 August 2026 · sports

It would be the International Criminal Court’s alleged supporters who refuse to take action to defend it. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is once again

It would be the International Criminal Court’s alleged supporters who refuse to take action to defend it. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is once again under attack from the United States. The reason behind Washington’s efforts to dismantle the institution is simple: an insistence that the US enjoys wholesale impunity. In numerous contexts, there are credible allegations of US citizens being involved in international crimes. If the US weren’t exposed to accountability for its atrocities, it wouldn’t be seeking to destroy the court. Now it’s the time for the ICC’s backers to stand up. US aggression towards the ICC is nothing new. The US has been seeking to subvert the work of the court since before it was even a fixture of the global arena. Since the presidency of George W Bush, Republicans in particular have been obsessed with the court and its operations. From former national security adviser John Bolton to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Republican officials have been fixated on the ICC even though it has never actually issued a warrant for any American citizen. Ironically, the efforts of US officials to condemn the ICC have bestowed prestige and legitimacy upon the institution. To those across the globe who believe that the ICC is feckless in the face of US imperial ambitions, tantrums from successive Republican administrations are a powerful antidote. In a nutshell, the greater Washington’s hysteria over the ICC, the more powerful and persuasive the court appears to those who believe the US is not above the law. The disdain from political quarters and any commitment to undermine the institution is a feature, not a bug, of international relations – and it always has been.

Yet this time feels different. The US sanctions against the ICC’s staff and threats to sanction the court as a whole as well as to dismantle it “brick by brick”, per Rubio, smack of escalation and pose an existential threat to the ICC. The only thing that can save the court is its members. If they fail to do so, it will not be President Donald Trump who kills the ICC, but their indifference. The smattering of primarily European and South American expressions of support for the ICC is good. But it is not enough. There are concrete actions that states can take to not only defend the court but also to strengthen it. First, members of the ICC should double down on cooperating with the court. They should reiterate that they support every situation currently under investigation and they will offer tangible cooperation in terms of evidence and any enforcement of arrest warrants issued by the institution. If they have already done so, they should do it again. Second, the court’s backers should encourage more states to join the ICC. This is particularly important given the recent withdrawals of Venezuela and Chad from the court – both of which left after being asked to do so by Washington. If the Trump administration is seeking to damage the court by diminishing its membership, states supportive of the institution should respond in kind with a campaign to rally other states to join. Many states have considered joining the ICC but have not committed to do so. Now is the time to convince them. Lebanon, for example, has toyed with becoming an ICC member state, which would give the court jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed by Israeli officials and Hezbollah commanders.