Washington’s imposition of sanctions and travel restrictions on the ICC Prosecutor, judges, and deputy prosecutors due to their work on cases involving US and Israeli officials is a blatant interference in the independence of international justice

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. 7 March 2025. (Bence Árpási via Alamy)

"The United States should stop its efforts to dismantle the Court and lift any financial sanctions and travel restrictions imposed on its judges, prosecutors, and associates. EU member states and other allies need to work together to implement legal, financial, and technical strategies that protect the Court and its personnel from sanctions and political influence, so it can continue to utilise the necessary services and resources to fulfil its responsibilities." 

Successive withdrawals, sanctions, and impunity for wanted individuals drive escalating campaign to undermine ICC 

Geneva — The coordinated actions to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC) and hinder its jurisdiction are deeply troubling and signal a dangerous path forward. This trend has become apparent with Venezuela and Chad announcing plans to withdraw from the Rome Statute. This occurs alongside clear US incitement efforts against the Court, including sanctions on its officials, and the European state parties’ lack of substantial action on arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

These actions risk undermining the international criminal justice system and depriving victims of international crimes of one of the few remaining accountability mechanisms, thereby entrenching impunity for perpetrators and providing political and legal cover for ongoing grave violations of international law.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor expresses deep concern over the Chadian government’s announcement that it has begun the process of withdrawing from the ICC. This comes shortly after Venezuela notified the United Nations of its withdrawal, following similar notifications from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. These actions indicate a concerning trend of countries moving away from the Rome Statute, both within and outside Africa... READ MORE https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/7086/Successive-withdrawals,-sanctions,-and-impunity-for-wanted-individuals-drive-escalating-campaign-to-undermine-ICC

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“From tourism to education to business, Americans have profited enormously from the open global order that international law has enabled. Trump’s return to a world of power politics would mean a more circumscribed and impoverished America.” What would happen if every state acted like Donald Trump’s America? by Kenneth Roth

"As Washington tramples norms, alliances might give way to grudging partnerships, with allies slow-walking their commitments" 

In a might-makes-right world, US allies, not to mention the emerging powers of the global south, would begin to hedge their bets in dangerous ways 

 

Kenneth Roth  in The Guardian 

 

14 Jan 2026   

What is wrong with resurrecting the prerogative of major powers to claim a sphere of influence in which they dictate and others must follow? That idea informs the “Donroe Doctrine” behind the US invasion of Venezuela to seize Nicolás Maduro. Donald Trump seems to believe that, as the world’s strongest military power, the United States should be allowed to invade other countries at will. Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, says “the real world” is “governed by strength”, by “power”, so we should get used to it.

There is a beguiling simplicity to this abandonment of the norms long designed to govern the behavior of states big and small. China has touted it as the reality that its Asian neighbors must live with. Russia, a third-tier power by comparison but still a nuclear-armed regional heavyweight, has periodically treated the boundaries of post-Soviet states as mere suggestions. But do we really want to return to the law of the jungle in which the guy with the biggest stick calls the shots?

Trump’s distaste for any constraints on US power did not emerge in a vacuum. The US government has long considered international law to be what Lilliputians use to restrain Gulliver. That wariness lies behind, for example, Washington’s reluctance to accept international standards that most others view as benign, such as the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (articulating modern standards for warfare and ratified by 175 states), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (the US is the only nation in the world not to have ratified it) or the Law of the Sea Treaty (171 state parties). Joining the international criminal court (ICC) is deemed beyond the pale.

To some extent, spheres of influence have long existed. The United States has dominated the western hemisphere, while China held significant sway in parts of Asia and Russia in the countries of the former Soviet Union. On occasion those big powers flexed their military muscles without regard to international law – the United States to invade Iraq, for example, Russia to seize chunks of Ukraine and Georgia, China to fence off much of the South China Sea. But these forays have been exceptions, justified with allusions to Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, Putin’s stated fear of Nato expansion or China’s historical territorial claims. Trump is proposing a more unabashed return to great-power spheres of influence enforced largely by coercion.

In the past, the US government at least nominally portrayed its dominance as aimed at upholding democracy and the rule of law. Despite the many exceptions, Washington spent enough time promoting a rights-based world order that its hegemonic role seemed more palatable. Under Trump, that is all history... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/14/trump-might-makes-right-world

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