In a joint op-ed published by the current and former presidents of the International Criminal Court’s governing body on the Just Security law and policy journal’s website on Thursday, they said, “Efforts to isolate the Court diplomatically — whether by encouraging States Parties to withdraw from the Rome Statute or urging non-States Parties to join measures intended to weaken it — are aimed at eroding not only one institution, but confidence in the international legal order itself.”
Defending the ICC “is about preserving the international legal order as we have built it, as humanity’s strongest safeguard against a descent into lawlessness and impunity,” the op-ed said, adding the choice was “between a world based on the rule of law and one where might decides what is right”.
The op-ed comes as the Trump administration has sanctioned ICC judges and officials, including the court’s president, and is pressing member countries to quit, a campaign that has prompted lawsuits and raised concerns among some US allies.
The ‌Trump ⁠administration ratcheted up its campaign against the Hague-based court last month by sanctioning its president, Tomoko Akane, and a senior trial lawyer.
Washington says it will also step up efforts to get other countries to quit the institution.
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 US is not a member. But the court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a US ally, over assertions of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s assault on Gaza, as ⁠well as a past probe into US troops in Afghanistan, has drawn Washington’s ire.
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