The US has demanded that international law be rewritten to exempt US officials, or else… This claim sounds so cartoonishly evil that it must surely be hyperbole and yet it’s true.
The Trump administration has demanded the Rome Statute be rewritten so that Trump and other US officials cannot be pursued by the International Criminal Court, otherwise it will impose harsher sanctions om the ICC. It has also demanded that investigations into Israeli leaders and US troops are dropped.
Trump does not seem to have thought through his demands because the ICC cannot simply rewrite the Rome Statute. Any amendments must be ratified by two-thirds of member states (major changes potentially require a bigger majority) and the process could take years. This means ICC officials could end up being sanctioned over something they are powerless to change.
The US has already imposed asset blocks on multiple ICC officials and their family members, as well as NGOs that support the ICC. At least nine ICC officials are currently sanctioned, including six judges, two deputy prosecutors, and the chief prosecutor. The sanctions have led to resignations and recruitment issues within the ICC, impacting the court’s ability to function.
The US is threatening to impose sanctions on more officials, and on the court itself, freezing its assets and making it difficult to pay its 1,000+ staff members. This could hinder investigations and postpone trials in relation to the world’s most serious crimes. The only reason to impose such sanctions is to protect war criminals.
Sanctioned individuals can only access money by dealing with banks that do not clear dollars. Accounts with platforms like Stripe, PayPal and Venmo are frozen as are accounts with most crypto exchanges and credit cards. Officials and their family members have been forced to close their accounts and lose money. As a result, the ICC has been looking at measures to pay sanctioned staff in Euros.
As if the sanctions weren’t bad enough, the ICC has been the victim of hacking and cyber attacks in relation to its probes into Gaza and Afghanistan. No prizes for guessing which countries were behind the attacks. The sanctions could impact cyber security by blocking the court’s ability to update software. Anyone who violates the sanctions risks up to 20 years in prison.
It’s worth remembering the US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, but it thinks it is above the rules it applies to others. The ICC has not signalled that arrest warrants for Trump or other US officials are imminent, but the Trump administration is worried warrants will be issued after 2029 when Trump is out of office. One of the key reasons they are panicking is the illegal strikes against Venezuelan fishermen in the Caribbean. The other reasons are Gaza and Afghanistan.
The comforting position would be to tell ourselves this is just a Trump thing, that the current US president is an aberration, but this is not the case. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan says that a UK official (possibly David Cameron) threatened to cut funding to the ICC and leave the Rome Statute if arrest warrants were pursued for Netanyahu and Gallant. The US government was involved in the threats and warned of “disastrous consequences”.
The UK government argued that arrest warrants were “disproportionate”, but what is the alternative to arresting those suspected of war crimes and genocide? The UK government knows such crimes are taking place because it was forced to suspend arms licences to Israel. Yes, it did not suspend every arms licence, and yes, the suspensions were performative, but they were an acknowledgement of war crimes.
Conveniently, accusations of sexual misconduct against Karim Khan magically appeared after the warrants were issued in an attempt to undermine him. Those allegations were dropped but re-emerged in a similar manner to what happened with Julian Assange. Khan remains on administrative leave, meaning he cannot do his job as ICC prosecutor until the investigation is concluded. Expect it to be kicked into the long grass.
Sexual assault allegations are commonly weaponised by the US, due to the stigma associated with defending such crimes. These accusations are the perfect way to isolate someone, but the US has overplayed its hand and everyone sees what is going on.
What is particularly galling is that the people behind the sexual assault accusations are most certainly involved in the Epstein ring. We are ruled by paedophiles who control the world through threats and blackmail. Clearly, there needs to be stronger mechanisms to protect the ICC because no country can be allowed to pervert the court of justice.
I actually agree with Trump that the Rome Statute should be amended, but not in the way he wants. As it stands, the ICC has limited powers to deal with interference from countries that are not signatories. A simple solution would be for interference in the court to be considered a war crime. Arrest warrants should be issued against any officials who interfere with the court. This would prevent them from entering ICC member states without facing arrest. The ICC should be able to impose retaliatory sanctions and give ‘em a taste of their own medicine.
You could argue this would be self-defeating and would spell the end of the International Criminal Court. My response would be so what? As it currently stands, we have a racist court that only targets the global south. It has broken that pattern just once, and in doing so, has exposed that international law is a lie. It is just a rule book for western imperialism to impose on the nations it wants to exploit. We cannot have a rules-based order unless the ICC applies the rules to everyone.
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That is America’s mission: protect the brutal, punish the just.
trump has been believing that he is above the law, as he thinks the law should be a weapon used only on his behalf.
There is a reason that the law is a two-edged sword, because it must work against the individual as well as for him. No one is exempt from the law.