Original Coverage & Source Attribution: tribune.com.pk
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The writer is a lawyer, law professor and regular contributor to various foreign media. He is affiliate faculty at the Rutgers University Center for Security, Race and Rights. Follow him on X @faisalkutty
The United States helped establish the principle that leaders who commit atrocities should answer to judges. It is now demonstrating how a powerful country can punish the judges instead.
On October 9, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court itself, escalating a campaign previously directed at its officials. The consequences extend beyond Washington’s confrontation with The Hague. For countries that cannot enforce their interests through military or economic power, weakening international justice carries a particular danger.
International law offers no guarantee of protection. But a world in which courts operate only with powerful states’ permission offers even less.
The sanctions require precise description. A US Treasury licence permits transactions necessary to maintain or wind down the court’s operations through April 7, 2027. It expressly covers continued operations, including salaries, rent and routine services. Separate licences address specified technology, pension and detainee-related transactions. The institutional licence does not, by itself, authorise transactions involving sanctioned officials separately.
These permissions provide breathing space. They also expose the court’s vulnerability: essential transactions depend on exceptions a government seeks to restrict. The sanctions create uncertainty for banks and suppliers and risk disrupting the services investigations depend on. Judicial independence becomes harder to sustain when foreign financial pressure targets the machinery needed to exercise it.
America’s relationship with the ICC has long been selective. Its refusal to join did not prevent cooperation when the court pursued cases Washington supported. American officials publicly endorsed its work in Darfur, Libya and Ukraine. The United States also facilitated the transfer of Congolese commander Bosco Ntaganda to The Hague after he appeared at its embassy in Kigali.
That history complicates Washington’s claim that the court lacks legitimacy. American officials have recognised its value when its work served objectives they supported.
Trump’s February 2025 sanctions order made his administration’s objection explicit: it rejected the court’s actions against Americans and Israeli officials, including the arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
Those warrants concern alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of warfare. They are not convictions. Israel rejects the allegations and disputes the court’s jurisdiction. Those distinctions matter because defending international justice requires respect for legal process, including the rights of the accused.
Jurisdictional objections deserve a legal hearing. Financial coercion cannot establish a court’s lack of authority.
The administration argues that neither the United States nor Israel joined the Rome Statute. Yet nationality is not the only basis for criminal jurisdiction. States ordinarily prosecute foreigners for crimes committed on their territory. The ICC’s framework likewise permits jurisdiction over qualifying crimes committed on the territory of a state party, including where the accused is a national of a non-member country.
In the Palestine situation, the court bases its territorial jurisdiction on Palestine’s accession to the Rome Statute, its acceptance of jurisdiction and judicial rulings concerning the occupied Palestinian territory. Israel contests that jurisdiction. However, non-membership alone does not resolve the dispute.
The framework also prioritises national courts. Under complementarity, genuine domestic proceedings concerning the same person and substantially the same conduct can make an ICC case inadmissible. Sovereignty carries an opportunity to deliver justice at home.
For Pakistani readers, the issue should reach beyond whether Washington is being hypocritical. That charge is familiar. The more consequential question is what replaces the institutions it weakens.
If courts can effectively investigate only those without powerful protectors, international criminal law becomes a system for disciplining the vulnerable. If financial pressure can obstruct proceedings, control over banking influences whose claims can be heard.
The court deserves criticism. Its uneven reach, lengthy proceedings and dependence on state cooperation demand scrutiny. But crippling its capacity would leave victims with fewer options while preserving the advantages of powerful suspects.
Consistency must also govern support for the court. A government cannot credibly demand accountability for Palestinians while treating comparable allegations elsewhere as an inconvenience. The principle must survive changes in the accused’s identity.
States that defend international justice should help preserve the court’s access to banking, technology and essential services through lawful arrangements. They should challenge coercive measures through available legal and diplomatic channels while insisting on fair proceedings and accountability within the court itself.
Washington should contest disputed jurisdiction in court. Its economic power should not determine which victims can seek a hearing.
America’s adversaries benefit when its conduct discredits its language of accountability. So does every leader seeking protection from scrutiny.
The greatest cost will fall on those without such protection.
