On 13 July 2026, Reuters reported that the United States administration had commenced a broad campaign to isolate and, in the language attributed to an American official, “dismantle”, the threat allegedly presented by the International Criminal Court. The measures under consideration reportedly include further financial sanctions, travel restrictions, visa cancellations, action against organisations associated with the Court, and diplomatic pressure upon other states to withdraw from or distance themselves from the ICC. Countries enjoying American military, intelligence, law-enforcement or security assistance may receive particular attention if they continue recognising the Court’s authority over American personnel.
The report warrants serious examination, but not breathless conclusions. The United States cannot unilaterally repeal the Rome Statute, dismiss the ICC’s judges or close the Court by presidential order. It can, however, exploit its commanding position within the international financial, technological and security systems to make the Court progressively more difficult to operate.
The distinction is crucial. An institution may survive in law while being starved of the practical conditions necessary for its existence.
The present controversy should not, however, be reduced to a morality play in which the ICC represents disinterested justice and the United States represents unrestrained power. The Court’s record is sufficiently problematic to justify close and sometimes severe criticism. Its jurisdictional theories remain contested. Its enforcement has been selective. Its institutional culture has repeatedly attracted concern. Its interventions have often appeared to follow geopolitical opportunity rather than a consistently applied conception of justice.
Nevertheless, criticism of a court—even justified criticism—is not the same thing as a lawful entitlement to punish judges for adjudicating cases placed before them. The present conflict therefore raises two distinct questions. First, has the ICC exercised its authority with sufficient legality, consistency and institutional integrity? Secondly, may a non-party state answer disputed judicial action by imposing debilitating personal sanctions upon judges, prosecutors and those who assist them?
A balanced analysis must permit the answer to both questions to be uncomfortable.
What the ICC actually is
The International Criminal Court is not a United Nations court and is not a universal criminal tribunal possessing automatic authority over every state and every conflict. It is a permanent treaty-based institution created by the Rome Statute, adopted in 1998 and brought into force on 1 July 2002. The Court presently has 125 States Parties.
The ICC prosecutes individuals rather than states. Its substantive jurisdiction principally concerns genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression, although the jurisdictional regime governing aggression is more restricted than that applicable to the other core crimes.
The Court may generally exercise jurisdiction where the alleged crime occurred on the territory of a State Party, where the accused is a national of a State Party, where a non-party state has accepted the Court’s jurisdiction for a particular situation, or where the United Nations Security Council refers a situation to the Prosecutor. Articles 12 and 13 of the Rome Statute provide the principal jurisdictional architecture.
The ICC is also intended to be a court of last resort. Under the principle of complementarity, reflected principally in Article 17, a case should ordinarily be inadmissible where a state with jurisdiction is genuinely investigating or prosecuting it. The Court may intervene where national proceedings are absent, are not genuine, or are affected by an unwillingness or inability to prosecute.
This sounds restrained in theory. In practice, however, the language of “unwillingness”, “inability” and “genuineness” gives an international institution the power to pass judgment upon the adequacy and good faith of national criminal processes. It is precisely here that the ideals of accountability collide with claims of sovereignty.
Why the United States rejects the Court’s jurisdiction
The United States signed the Rome Statute on 31 December 2000 during the final days of the Clinton administration, but President Clinton recommended that the treaty should not be submitted for ratification until American concerns had been addressed. The subsequent Bush administration informed the United Nations in 2002 that the United States did not intend to become a party. The country has therefore never ratified the Statute and has never become an ICC member state.
American opposition is not wholly irrational or confined to one political faction. Its central objection is that a treaty body should not exercise criminal jurisdiction over nationals of a state that has not consented to that treaty.
The ICC’s answer is territorial. If an alleged offence occurs within the territory of a State Party, the Court maintains that the territorial state’s acceptance of the Rome Statute supplies the necessary jurisdictional basis, irrespective of the nationality of the suspect. Article 12(2)(a) reflects that proposition. The argument broadly resembles the ordinary principle that a state may prosecute foreign nationals for crimes committed within its territory.
Supporters of the ICC contend that a territorial state may confer or delegate part of its criminal jurisdiction to an international tribunal. On that view, an American, Russian or Israeli national committing an offence on the territory of an ICC member does not enjoy immunity merely because his or her state of nationality rejected the Rome Statute.
The American response is that the ICC is not simply exercising the domestic jurisdiction of the territorial state. It is an independent treaty institution wielding public authority under a treaty to which the accused person’s state never consented. American objections also emphasise the risk of politically motivated proceedings against soldiers, intelligence officers, elected officials and allied personnel deployed overseas.
That is a genuine legal disagreement. It should not be dismissed by merely repeating that the ICC is “the world’s court”. It is not the world’s court in any complete constitutional sense. It is the court of those states that created it, supplemented by territorial jurisdiction, ad hoc acceptances and Security Council referrals.
At the same time, the American position cannot easily be treated as an absolute rule of international law. Nationality has never been the sole foundation of criminal jurisdiction. A state cannot ordinarily immunise its nationals from the territorial laws of every foreign country simply by withholding consent. The real question is whether territorial criminal jurisdiction may validly be channelled through the ICC. The Rome Statute answers yes; the United States answers no.
The controversy is therefore not imaginary. Nor has it been conclusively resolved by an international constitutional authority universally accepted by both sides—because no such authority exists.
The ICC’s credibility problem is real
Support for international criminal accountability does not require sentimental treatment of the ICC. The institution’s performance has frequently fallen short of the moral confidence with which it speaks.
The Court itself presently records 34 cases, 13 convictions and four acquittals. Numbers alone cannot measure justice: cases concerning mass atrocities are exceptionally complex, evidence is often located in active conflict zones, witnesses may be endangered, and suspects may remain protected by governments. Nevertheless, the contrast between the Court’s considerable institutional expenditure, expansive rhetoric and relatively limited completed caseload has inevitably attracted criticism.
For much of its existence, the Court’s successful prosecutions were concentrated overwhelmingly in Africa. Some of those situations were referred by African states themselves, and this is often omitted from polemical criticism. Yet the cumulative impression remained that international criminal law was most enforceable against leaders and armed actors from weaker states, while the conduct of powerful states and their allies remained largely beyond practical reach.
This is not solely the fault of the Court. International criminal justice depends upon cooperation, arrests, access to evidence and diplomatic support. The ICC has no independent police force capable of entering a country and seizing a suspect. It relies upon states to execute warrants and assist investigations.
That dependence creates structural selectivity. Cases advance where political conditions permit them to advance. Warrants against internationally isolated individuals may be celebrated, while equally serious allegations involving militarily or diplomatically powerful states remain stalled. The law may be written universally, but its machinery is not universally available.
The Court has also faced serious internal governance concerns. The Assembly of States Parties commissioned an Independent Expert Review to address questions of governance, judicial practice, investigations, prosecutions, efficiency and organisational culture. That review generated an extensive programme of proposed reforms rather than a simple endorsement of existing arrangements.
More recently, Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was suspended amid disciplinary proceedings concerning allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies. A United Nations-commissioned investigation reportedly found a factual basis supporting aspects of the allegations, while an external judicial review concluded that the evidence was insufficient to establish them beyond reasonable doubt.
The matter remains contested and must be approached with due regard to procedural fairness and the presumption against premature conclusions. It nevertheless illustrates the reputational and institutional difficulties facing a Court that claims authority to judge the gravest misconduct of others.
None of this proves that every ICC case is politically motivated. It does demonstrate that the Court cannot demand immunity from scrutiny merely because its mandate concerns atrocity crimes. An institution administering justice must itself exhibit legality, transparency, due process and institutional discipline.
The American sanctions programme
On 6 February 2025, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14203, declaring certain ICC activities an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to American national security and foreign policy.
The order authorises the blocking of property belonging to foreign persons determined to have participated in ICC efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute protected American or allied nationals without the consent of their state of nationality. Its reach extends to persons who materially assist, finance or provide goods, services, technological support or other assistance to designated persons or activities. It also authorises immigration restrictions affecting ICC officials, employees, agents and, in specified circumstances, immediate family members.
The United States presents these measures as an exercise of sovereign self-defence against an institution lacking jurisdiction over American and Israeli nationals. The administration relies upon domestic emergency and sanctions powers, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The practical effect is far broader than the freezing of assets physically situated in the United States. Much of the international banking system clears transactions in dollars or maintains exposure to American regulators. Global technology, travel, insurance and communications companies commonly depend upon access to the American market. A person placed upon a United States sanctions list may therefore find that ostensibly non-American institutions refuse service out of caution.
Three sanctioned ICC judges commenced proceedings against the Trump administration in June 2026. They alleged that the sanctions were intended to punish and coerce them for judicial decisions and described their effect as a form of “financial death penalty”: loss of credit cards, banking services, online platforms, travel facilities and, in certain cases, access to insurance. Those allegations have not yet been finally adjudicated, but they illustrate how individual sanctions may operate in contemporary commercial life.
American courts have already expressed concern about aspects of the sanctions regime. In July 2025, a federal judge granted preliminary relief to two American human-rights advocates, concluding that restrictions upon services provided to ICC personnel were likely to burden substantially more protected expression than necessary. That decision did not invalidate the executive order throughout the world or remove sanctions from foreign ICC officials; its immediate protection was confined to the litigants and circumstances before the court.
The legal controversies are therefore developing on two planes. Internationally, the issue concerns sovereignty, judicial independence, non-intervention and the legitimacy of extraterritorial financial coercion. Domestically, American courts must consider presidential emergency powers, statutory authority, due process and the First Amendment rights of Americans wishing to communicate or work with the ICC.
Can the United States legally dismantle the ICC?
Not by itself.
The ICC derives its legal personality and institutional existence from the Rome Statute. The United States is not a State Party and possesses no vote in the Assembly of States Parties. It cannot repeal the Statute, remove the Court’s judges, terminate the terms of member states or direct the Netherlands to close the Court.
A State Party wishing to leave may withdraw under Article 127 by submitting written notification to the United Nations Secretary-General. Withdrawal ordinarily becomes effective one year after notification and does not retrospectively extinguish obligations arising while the state was a party.
Washington can encourage member states to withdraw, but it cannot withdraw on their behalf. Nor would the departure of a small number of members automatically dissolve the institution. The Court presently retains 125 States Parties, an Assembly, elected judges, a Registry, prosecutorial offices and an approved budgetary structure.
The United States could therefore not dismantle the ICC de jure without obtaining the cooperation of a substantial number of Rome Statute states.
It may, however, attempt to dismantle it de facto.
If banks will not process salaries, technology companies will not provide systems, insurers will not cover personnel, experts will not accept instructions, witnesses cannot be protected, and member states fear diplomatic or security consequences for cooperating, the Court’s formal existence may become increasingly hollow.
This is institutional strangulation rather than legal abolition.
Are the sanctions justified by the ICC’s defects?
This is where analytical discipline is most necessary.
The ICC has no inherent right to be admired. It may be criticised for weak investigations, failed prosecutions, inconsistent case selection, expansive jurisdictional reasoning, institutional opacity, inadequate safeguards or political naivety. States that never joined the Rome Statute retain a legitimate interest in protecting their personnel from what they regard as unauthorised proceedings.
The United States is also generally entitled to decide which foreign nationals may enter its territory and how assets within its jurisdiction may be regulated, subject to its own constitutional and statutory limitations.
But sanctions against judges present a qualitatively different problem from diplomatic protest, non-cooperation or legal challenge.
A judge does not ordinarily choose the controversy that comes before the court. A judge interprets the constitutive instrument and decides jurisdiction according to the legal framework governing that institution. One may believe the interpretation to be wrong, even seriously wrong, without treating the judge as the equivalent of a terrorist financier, narcotics trafficker or hostile state official.
When sanctions are designed not merely to express disagreement but to alter future judicial conduct by threatening the personal financial existence of judges, the measures begin to resemble extrajudicial compulsion. The concern is not that ICC judges are infallible. It is that judicial decisions should ordinarily be answered by appeal, jurisdictional challenge, treaty amendment, negotiation or principled non-recognition—not personal economic destruction.
There is also an uncomfortable question of precedent. If the United States may financially isolate international judges who authorise proceedings against Americans or allies, other powers will claim the same entitlement. Russia may sanction judges handling Ukraine cases. China may target investigators examining allegations concerning Chinese nationals. Any powerful state may redefine an adverse judicial decision as an attack upon national security.
International adjudication cannot survive if judicial independence exists only when powerful states approve the result.
The charge of selective justice cuts both ways
American criticism of the ICC frequently centres upon selectivity. Yet the proposed response risks reproducing the very selectivity it condemns.
Washington has, at different times, supported international criminal accountability when directed against adversaries. American policy has not always been one of complete hostility towards the Court. Previous administrations engaged with the Assembly of States Parties and supported accountability initiatives in selected situations, notwithstanding the United States’ continued refusal to ratify the Rome Statute.
The contradiction is apparent. An institution cannot be treated as a useful instrument of justice when investigating opponents but as an intolerable assault upon sovereignty when its attention approaches one’s own nationals or allies.
The ICC faces a corresponding contradiction. It cannot credibly proclaim universal justice while appearing dependent upon the political preferences of the same powerful states whose conduct may require investigation. Nor can it answer every jurisdictional objection by invoking the suffering of victims. Victims deserve justice, but justice requires lawful jurisdiction, reliable evidence, equality of arms and consistent legal principle.
Both sides therefore confront the same moral temptation: to treat law as legitimate when it restrains others and illegitimate when it restrains oneself.
Will the campaign succeed?
The Court continues to operate. In July 2026, its Deputy Prosecutor reported a significant evidential development in the Darfur investigations, including material said to connect atrocities with senior leadership. That work demonstrates that the ICC has not yet been rendered inoperative.
The European Union has repeatedly declared support for the Court and has promised assistance in protecting its independence and personnel from external pressure. Whether such declarations will be matched by effective financial, technological and diplomatic protection is another question.
The decisive actors are not merely ICC officials in The Hague. They are the 125 States Parties. If those states establish resilient banking arrangements, protect service providers, execute lawful warrants, support witness security and resist secondary pressure, the American campaign may damage but not dismantle the Court.
If they confine themselves to expressions of concern while banks, corporations and governments quietly disengage, the institution may remain formally alive while becoming progressively ceremonial.
Pakistan is not presently a State Party to the Rome Statute, just as the United States, China, Russia and Israel remain outside the treaty system. For non-party states, the controversy nevertheless matters. It concerns whether international criminal jurisdiction will develop through genuine consent and consistent principle, or through a shifting contest between institutions claiming universality and states possessing the economic power to defeat them.
Conclusion: a court may be flawed without being fair game
The International Criminal Court has not earned unquestioning confidence. Its record contains genuine grounds for scepticism: jurisdictional ambition, institutional frailty, dependence upon political cooperation, uneven enforcement, limited completed prosecutions and serious internal governance concerns.
It should be scrutinised, challenged and reformed. Where it exceeds its lawful authority, states are entitled to contest its jurisdiction. Where its prosecutors fail to establish cases, defendants must be acquitted. Where its officers engage in misconduct, they must be investigated with the same procedural seriousness the Court demands from others.
But none of those propositions establishes that judges may properly be deprived of ordinary civil and financial existence because a powerful state dislikes their decisions.
The United States cannot abolish the ICC by decree. It can, however, use sanctions, market access, banking power and security relationships to make the Court increasingly difficult to sustain. That is why the language of dismantlement is not entirely theatrical.
The greater danger extends beyond the fate of one controversial institution. If international courts may be economically disabled whenever they approach powerful interests, international law will survive principally as a vocabulary used against weaker states. Conversely, if international courts demand obedience without jurisdictional restraint, institutional accountability or consistent application, they will themselves accelerate the erosion of the legal order they claim to defend.
The ICC’s defenders must therefore resist the temptation to deny its defects. Its opponents must resist the temptation to convert power into judgment.
Justice is not preserved by pretending that the Court is beyond criticism. Nor is sovereignty preserved by placing judges under personal economic siege. The durable path lies in lawful challenge, institutional reform, principled jurisdiction and equal standards—an admittedly demanding formula, but one more worthy of law than either judicial self-righteousness or geopolitical retaliation.
This article is intended as a general analysis of public international law and current international developments. It does not constitute legal advice concerning any particular investigation, sanctions designation, transaction or individual.