With a new attack on the ICC, the U.S. expands its assault on the rule of law by Craig Mokhiber

First, duly constituted international tribunals, as institutions of international law, are not a threat to any state’s sovereignty. To the contrary, they are expressions of sovereignty, as international law is formulated by states as an act of sovereignty.

States negotiate treaties, join international organizations, and consent to be bound by international law in order to benefit from inclusion in the international community of states, and to ensure a safer and more stable international legal order.

Nowhere is this clearer than in matters of the prohibition of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression — which represent the entire remit of the ICC. And the Court only acts in the wake of such atrocities when there is a jurisdictional basis to do so, and when relevant states are unable or unwilling to act.

Seeking to be excluded from accountability for the highest crimes in international law, or to exclude others from it, is not the behavior of a state worried about the technicalities of sovereignty. Rather, it is the act of a rogue state seeking to advance the cause of impunity for itself and its co-perpetrators.