Into the fray: USA vs ICC – Rubio vows to dismantle International Court ‘brick by brick’

Rubio’s initiative serves to undermine the legitimacy of the ICC measures against senior Israeli personnel and expose just how the hypocrisy-ridden ICC has strayed from its lofty founding principles.

By Martin Sherman 

The ICC’s witch hunt against America and Israel has imperiled its continued existence.

Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio set the proverbial cat among the pigeons with his recent declaration of his intention to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court (ICC) and urged other nations to join in the effort.

Rubio launched the campaign, vowing to employ “all the tools at our government’s disposal” to “dismantle the ICC, brick by brick.”

Against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s escalating actions against the ICC, Rubio accused the court of “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles,” but with “the force of so-called international law.”

A warped sense of justice?

The administration’s ire against the ICC dates back to President Trump’s first term, when it targeted the ICC for seeking to investigate alleged war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the second Trump administration has imposed a slew of sanctions against ICC officials for their attempts to investigate the US and Israel—neither of which is even a member of the ICC.

But the new trigger for the White House’s intensifying its punitive action against the ICC was its scandalous issue of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

In a feeble ICC attempt to feign evenhandedness, warrants were also issued against Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh—after their deaths—which, quite apart from the absurdity of equating the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre with those who responded to it, underscores the warped sense of justice the ICC purports to administer.

Gravely misinformed or grossly dishonest

The figure behind these measures was ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who initiated the request for the arrest warrants.

Khan has since been forced to leave office following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

According to some sources, the arrest warrants were motivated, at least in part, to divert attention from these allegations.

Significantly, Khan is not the only chief ICC prosecutor against whom allegations of severe impropriety (conducted before, during, or after their term in office) have been leveled.

For example, Fatou Bensouda (2012-2021), who prior to her appointment as Chief ICC prosecutor held top posts in the Gambian judiciary under the brutal military dictatorship that ruled Gambia from 1994 to 2017.

Bensouda claimed she had no knowledge of the human rights abuses of the regime she served.

However, given her seniority and long association with the regime, this leaves one to ponder which is worse: Whether she really was oblivious of the abuses or whether she was not—whether she was gravely ill-informed or whether she was grossly deceitful.

Sexual misconduct & financial shenanigans?

Likewise, Bensouda’s predecessor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the ICC’s first prosecutor (2003–2012), also fell under a cloud of suspicion—both while in office and after leaving it.

Thus, Ocampo was accused of sexual misconduct (2005) in South Africa by an ICC whistleblower.

Although Ocampo’s ICC cronies dismissed the charges, the whistleblower was vindictively dismissed by Ocampo himself—despite the ICC’s own internal Disciplinary Advisory Board’s call to rescind the dismissal.

Undeterred, the whistleblower appealed to the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which found resoundingly in his favor, awarding him substantial monetary compensation, casting further doubts on the ICC’s integrity.

After leaving the ICC in 2012, Ocampo became the subject of several allegations concerning his financial and professional activities.

These included the abuse of his position as former ICC prosecutor, shady financial shenanigans, and severe conflicts of interest.

These allegations stemmed primarily from the far-reaching 2017 “Secrets of the Court” investigation by the European Investigative Collaborations, a nonprofit network of leading investigative journalists and media organizations established in 2015 to conduct collaborative cross-border investigations into issues of public interest.

While the allegations did not result in actual judicial convictions, the ethical issues they raised served to tarnish his reputation, and, by association, that of the ICC’s judicial practices.

The Israeli angle

For Israel, Rubio’s initiative is a welcome development.

For it serves to undermine the legitimacy of the ICC measures against senior Israeli personnel and expose just how the hypocrisy-ridden ICC has strayed from its lofty founding principles and noble aims.

For the fallen Karim Khan and his cronies, it perhaps reflects that Biblical maxim in Numbers 24:9: Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed. And whoever curses Israel will be cursed.”

anti-IsraelICCKarim KhanMarco Rubio