Trump administration launches effort to ‘dismantle’ the International Criminal Court

Rubio says plan’s message is ‘sovereign states over globalism’; State Dept. official says options include travel bans, visa revocations, increased sanctions against court officials

By and Jacob Magid

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Today, 8:35 pm

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The Trump administration on Monday launched an effort to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court over what it said were the threat the court poses to American sovereignty.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the plan in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

“The US is launching a diplomatic campaign with a simple message — sovereign states over globalism. Those who benefit from American security must not stand idly by while those who provide that security are targeted,” Rubio wrote.

“This is only the beginning. 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,” he said.

President Donald Trump and other US officials, such as former president George W. Bush, have long said the ICC should not have the authority to investigate and prosecute Americans, particularly members of the US military.

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A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday that a wide range of options is under consideration to target the ICC, including travel bans, visa revocations, increased sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organizations, and diplomatic pressure on other nations to withdraw from the ICC.

The ICC was established in 2002 by the international community to prosecute war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. It asserts jurisdiction only if a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocities itself. The United States has never been a member of the court, nor has Israel.

Trump’s hostility toward the court goes back to his first term. It manifested again with a plan to punish ICC officials, an idea hatched in November 2024 when Trump was reelected and the ICC issued warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Last month, three International Criminal Court judges sued Trump and ​his administration over sanctions imposed on them last year, arguing the measures were unlawful.

The State Department official said Rubio and other top US officials are pressuring other countries as part of a campaign “to diplomatically isolate the International Criminal Court and ensure it cannot target Americans.”

In March 2020, ICC prosecutors opened an investigation in Afghanistan that included looking into possible crimes by US troops, but since 2021, it has deprioritized the role of the US and focused on alleged crimes committed by the Afghan government and Taliban forces.

Israel has dismissed the ICC’s warrants against its officials as biased and antisemitic. It also entirely rejects the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court to arrest or prosecute its leaders, having never joined the international conventions that created it, and argues that the membership of the Palestinian Authority does not grant the ICC jurisdiction either, due to explicit provisions of the Oslo Accords.

The ICC has no enforcement methods and relies on the cooperation of party nations to carry out its warrants.

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