{"id":42517,"date":"2026-09-02T15:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T15:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/42517\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T15:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T15:55:07","slug":"rubios-icc-criticism-exposes-the-uss-double-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/42517\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio\u2019s ICC criticism exposes the US’s double standard"},"content":{"rendered":"

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> recently issued press releases, published an op-ed, and posted a video declaring that the Trump administration will \u201cdismantle\u201d the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world\u2019s first and only permanent international criminal tribunal.<\/p>\n

As the first American to have served at the ICC, I know from personal experience that Rubio\u2019s criticisms of the court must be taken seriously. However, just as it is counterproductive for ICC proponents not to acknowledge and address Rubio\u2019s legitimate concerns, it is disingenuous of him not to recognize and respond to the United States\u2019 hypocrisy toward international criminal courts.<\/p>\n

The ICC can and does impose certain jurisdiction on countries, including the US<\/a>, which have not ratified the Rome Statute (the ICC\u2019s underlying treaty).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rubio said that the US never consented to the ICC, so the country should not be subject to this court. He emphasized bipartisan opposition in both the White House and the US Congress to joining the Rome Statute.<\/p>\n

Rubio is correct. A fundamental principle of international law is that, with extremely limited exceptions, states are not bound by treaties to which they have not consented.<\/p>\n

\"USUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to the media after visiting the Civil-Military Coordination Center in southern Israel on October 24, 2025. (credit: FADEL SENNA\/Pool via REUTERS)<\/p>\n

In refusing to submit the Rome Statute to the US Senate for ratification in 2000, president Bill Clinton noted his \u201cconcerns about significant flaws in the treaty,\u201d primarily over this issue.<\/p>\n

Two years later, for mainly the same reason, the US Congress passed, and president George W. Bush enacted, a law that authorizes the president to use \u201call means necessary and appropriate,\u201d including the use of force, to free Americans and allies \u201cdetained or imprisoned\u201d by or for the ICC.<\/p>\n

Rather than simply waving away concerns about the ICC\u2019s jurisdiction, ICC proponents should retort that, for almost a century, the United States itself has violated the very principle Rubio now champions.<\/p>\n

The US supported, and even led, the establishment of several ad hoc international criminal courts \u2013 including the post-World War II Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals as well as the post-Cold War United Nations (UN) International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia \u2013 all of which imposed jurisdiction on states that had not consented to these courts\u2019 foundational agreements.<\/p>\n

The US has even promoted the ICC itself. For example, in 2005 the US could have but did not block the UN Security Council from referring to the ICC the situation in Darfur, Sudan \u2013 which had not (and still has not) consented to the Rome Statute.<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy in international affairs<\/p>\n

Of course, hypocrisy in international law and global affairs is nothing new; the US, like any country, is entitled to act inconsistently; and the Trump administration is within its right to adopt a different policy toward international criminal courts than its predecessors. However, those are different matters than ignoring Rubio\u2019s concern or baldly asserting that he is wrong.<\/p>\n

Rubio further argued that the ICC\u2019s internal checks do not allay US concerns. The Rome Statute includes features that are supposed to prevent frivolous or politically motivated charges. One is Article 17\u2019s \u201cprinciple of complementarity,\u201d which holds that cases are inadmissible where a state that has jurisdiction over the case \u201cis unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another is Article 18\u2019s requirement that a \u201cpre-trial chamber\u201d of ICC judges authorize investigations of any cases referred to the ICC by a state party or initiated by the chief prosecutor. ICC opponents emphasize that it is ICC officials themselves who determine Article 17\u2019s unwillingness and inability and Article 18\u2019s authorization.<\/p>\n

In addition to Rubio\u2019s worry that institutional self-checks are not necessarily genuine restraints, he has valid reason to doubt the judgment and impartiality of ICC staff.<\/p>\n

On July 24, the ICC\u2019s member states fired the court\u2019s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan<\/a>, after the ICC\u2019s own governing body found that he committed sexual misconduct. Khan\u2019s denials include blaming the accusation on a supposed Israeli plot.<\/p>\n

A sexual predator thus led all ICC prosecutions for more than five years and falsely, recklessly, and deliberately promoted a conspiracy theory against Jews that fuels the global surge in antisemitism in a pathetic, failed attempt to cover his misdeeds.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Rubio has reason to be specifically concerned about anti-American sentiment at the ICC. Rather than dismissing this worry as paranoia, ICC proponents should acknowledge that some supporters and even staff of the ICC indeed exhibit anti-Americanism.<\/p>\n

In 2003, I became the first American to serve at the ICC, when I clerked for the court\u2019s inaugural chief prosecutor. As the ICC did not yet have any cases, staff often discussed what the first ones should be.<\/p>\n

Around that time, a genocide in Darfur had erupted, and widespread, systematic atrocity crimes raged in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Yet, several of my colleagues told me that the countries they most wanted to see in the dock were instead the US and Israel (and this occurred two decades before allegations that Israel has committed atrocity crimes in Gaza<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how representative my colleagues\u2019 views were or remain for ICC staff, but Rubio is, again, correct to be concerned about bias at the ICC against the US \u2013 and its allies.<\/p>\n

Instead of rejecting Rubio\u2019s criticisms of the ICC outright as \u201cbarely warrant[ing] response,\u201d the court\u2019s proponents would do well to engage more directly and honestly with that substance. Rubio himself should address US inconsistency on international courts. Only then might there be hope for necessary ICC reforms and better US-ICC relations.<\/p>\n

The writer is professor of law and director of the Initiative on International Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches Criminal Law, International Law, National Security Law, and Law & Justice for Atrocity Crimes. He was the first American to serve at the International Criminal Court and is the author of United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics (Oxford University Press).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently issued press releases, published an op-ed, and posted a video declaring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[276,5010,7858,12459,42,739,2102],"class_list":["post-42517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-hague","tag-international-criminal-court","tag-karim-khan","tag-marco-rubio","tag-rome","tag-the-hague","tag-united-states","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}