TEHRAN- Writing an article in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State issued a broadside against the International Criminal Court (ICC) that in 2024 issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
“The ICC’s interfering with American military and law enforcement operations isn’t just only a grave overreach of its purported authorities. It would mean the death of the U.S. as a sovereign and independent nation,” Rubio wrote.
Before the publication of the article, the U.S. had started a smear campaign against ICC chief Karim Khan and even threatened military attack against the international body. For example, in November 2024, Senator Tom Cotton, who is under the influence of AIPAC, threatened military action against the ICC after arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, invoking a controversial U.S. law known as “The Hague Invasion Act”.
In an inflammatory statement on social media, Cotton declared: “The ICC is a kangaroo court and Karim Khan is a deranged fanatic. Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it.”
In 2025, Donald Trump also signed an executive order sanctioning ICC judges over investigations into top Israeli officials.
In 2024, a female ICC staff member accused Khan of sexual misconduct. Khan has consistently denied the allegations. The allegations against him may ultimately prove to be true, or they may turn out to be an attempt to discredit him. Either way, even if Khan were found guilty of sexual misconduct, it would not invalidate or negate his legal reasoning that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza.
Such pressure and the allegations against the ICC’s chief prosecutor ultimately led Khan to temporarily step aside from his duties in May 2025.
In a new move, the UK’s Bar Standards Board suspended Khan from practicing law in England and Wales while disciplinary proceedings are pending. He appealed that suspension, but the appeal was rejected.
In his opinion piece, Rubio openly threatened that the Trump administration is working to “dismantle the [ICC) brick by brick.”
“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 wrote.
Rubio also filmed a monologue on the issue, which was released on X on Monday, in which he accused the court of trying to take away Americans’ rights to abide by their own laws and stand in front of a jury of their peers when accused of committing a crime.
“… today powerful people in far away places want to take that away from us. They believe that they should be in charge of your laws, of your country, your life – and they don’t care whether or not you agree,” he said in the video.
Rubio said that Americans likely don’t know the names of the judges, prosecutors or presidents of the international court, and that they “shouldn’t have to”, while claiming that the ICC has waged a war against the U.S.
The ICC was founded in 2002 in response to genocides and atrocities in war zones such as Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. However, now the U.S. and its closest allies, including Britain, are demonizing the international body.
Rubio pitched the White House’s decision to destroy the court in nationalist terms, saying, “Independence is our birthright. We don’t intend to trade it for rule by a self-appointed priesthood of ‘international law’.”
Through these remarks, Rubio wants to suggest that the United States stands above international law.
To cover up his angst against the international court, Rubio claimed the ICC is “backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.”
The article by Rubio comes more than six years after the ICC authorized an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by all parties to the Afghanistan war, including the Taliban, Afghan government forces, and members of the U.S. armed forces and the CIA.
It is noticeable that the court did not just allege war crimes against U.S. servicepersons, but against Taliban militants and Afghan military forces.
Rubio also claimed that the ICC is “a global tribunal staffed by globalist unelected bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited.” However, the court has 125 member countries, including all the members of the European Union, which is a friend of the United States.
It is not just the U.S. that does not want to submit to ICC jurisdiction. Certain other powerful countries that are not members of the court also oppose ICC rulings.
In 2002, the U.S., under President George W. Bush, formally withdrew from the ICC and pressured countries into signing bilateral immunity agreements to prevent them from surrendering U.S. nationals to the ICC.
Rubio’s tirade against the ICC strongly warrants that the U.S. is seriously angry with the ICC, which wants those who committed genocide in Gaza to be brought to book.
The United Nations, human rights bodies, and genocide scholars unanimously agree that Israel must be held accountable for its Gaza war crimes, which have been described as genocide.
At no point in recent decades has the United States been so brazen in violating international law and norms or so openly dismissive of internationally recognized legal and moral principles. Rubio’s public threat to dismantle the ICC “brick by brick” has sent shivers down the spines of the international community.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
