Rubio’s anti-ICC push: the last nail in the coffin of international law?

Imagine living in a world where you cannot resort to justice, where those committing crimes against you punish the judges who are there to protect you, or where perpetrators can just exempt themselves from the law. This is what international justice looks like now.

The US was a principal founder of the post-war international order, designed to prevent aggression against weaker states, hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable and build a more peaceful world founded on universal human rights.

Together with its allies, the US has undermined that system by exempting itself when inconvenient. That disregard has now escalated into an official US policy of dismantling the institutions entrusted with the rules. The latest move on this is the Secretary of State’s announcement of the US intention to dismantle the ICC.

The consequences are already with us: democratic erosion at home and, given the US's unrivalled military power, the entire world is vulnerable to coercion. The Trump administration has threatened Canada and Greenland and, with that, the NATO alliance, launched tariff wars, favoured Russia in negotiations over Ukraine, destabilised global markets in strikes on Iran, and adopted a transactional approach that is ill-fitted to the security concerns of the US and its allies.

Undermining the UN

There is broad agreement that the UN needs reforming to make it more effective and less wasteful. The US’ approach is doing more to undermine the UN than improve it, with its use of the Security Council veto a big part of the problem. The US has used its veto more than forty-five times to shield Israel.

During what the International Court of Justice declared to be a plausible genocide in Gaza, the US vetoed several resolutions calling for a ceasefire.

The US has also undermined the UN through its funding leverage. In January, the Secretary-General warned all 193 member states that the UN faced "imminent financial collapse". Some 95% of the budget shortfall is reportedly owed by the US, which has conditioned payment on certain changes at the UN.

Examples of US disgruntlement with the UN include its Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, and pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council, which had concluded in September 2025 that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

On 26 July, the US joined Israel, North Korea and Russia among a handful of countries opposing the renewal of the mandate of UN human rights chief Volker Türk. This prompted a diplomatic row after the French delegation stated that the US was no longer the beacon of human rights it once was.

Attacking the ICC

Marco Rubio’s article of 13 July, titled Why We’re Dismantling the ICC, claims that the Court lacks jurisdiction over non-signatory states such as the US and Israel with judicial systems capable of upholding the rules without its interference. In practice, this is not the case: US courts have refused jurisdiction over US arms exports to Israel citing separation of powers, and Israel operates a two-tier legal system, one for Israelis and one for Palestinians.

ICC jurisdiction rests on the widely accepted principle that crimes are tried based on where they are committed, not based on the nationality of the accused.

Instead of refuting the evidence in court, the US and Israel chose to attack the ICC. Given that the US has no authority to abolish an institution created by a treaty ratified by 125 nations, it has resorted to sanctioning ICC officials for carrying out legitimate work and is pressuring member states to withdraw or influence the Court. That is not a defence of justice but an attempt to evade it and to destroy the international rules-based order.

US pressure is working. Rather than defend the ICC, an increasing number of member states are withdrawing from it. The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron had already threatened ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan with UK withdrawal around the time when he was preparing arrest warrants against Israeli top-ranking officials Netanyahu and Gallant.

A majority of countries, including the UK, also backed the removal of Khan from his office despite an independent UN investigation and judicial review finding insufficient evidence of sexual misconduct against him. He has also been debarred as a British Barrister. Former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the move as political and part of a broader campaign to weaken the Court after it sought the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

While the US has rejected international institutions on grounds of preserving its sovereignty, it willingly jeopardised that sovereignty when the US House of Representatives voted for The National Defence Authorisation Act. Section 219 provides for integration of US and Israeli military research and industries. The integration will deepen unconditional support for Israel despite a majority of the US public opposing it, potentially shifting from large aid packages to a more seamless system.

The global implications

While accusing the ICC of judicial meddling, the US engages in interference of the kind the international system is meant to restrain.

In Venezuela, it bombed fishing vessels in the Caribbean, abducted President Nicolas Maduro in January 2026, and is trying him in a US court. The New York Times reported that Rubio called Vice President Rodriguez after the kidnapping and offered a choice between collaboration and an attack on Venezuela's infrastructure, military and leaders. She conceded and recently withdrew from the ICC, removing the threat of accountability for US actions in her country.

A similar strategy has yet to work against Iran, in a war many experts consider illegal. This is in its initially declared aim of regime change pursued through assassinations of Iranian leaders, in unsubstantiated claims of an imminent nuclear attack by a country that has not yet developed nuclear weapons against a nuclear-armed Israel, and in the unlawful targeting of civilians and infrastructure.

The US is finding it harder to selectively invoke international rules and still garner support. It condemned Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz as unlawful under international law, though the strait was open until US attacks on Iran. It shows no similar concerns for its own fuel blockade of Cuba, which is resulting in collective punishment and is intended to force regime change.

Contested theology in place of law

On 23 July, Rubio described ICC officials as "lunatics and crazies… talking about charging members of the US military, maybe even the president." If not international law and its institutions, what then is guiding US foreign policy, with unconditional support for Israel as its unwavering feature?

Explaining that support, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told a Christian broadcaster that respect for the individual is a uniquely Judeo-Christian idea that founded America. He has repeatedly asserted Israel’s “biblical rights” to Palestine and to other countries in the region.

His claim erases the much broader exchanges of ideas between civilisations, wrongly attributes certain moral characteristics as the exclusive preserve of two religions, conflates Judaism with Israel and does not acknowledge majority Christian perspectives that do not share his views. It also fails chronologically, with the US founded in 1776 and contemporary Israel in 1948, separated from ancient Israel by thousands of years, and disregards the rule of law.

Given that Huckabee represents both the US and an important segment of Trump's base, irrational and unreasonable judgments seem to belong within the US administration, and it is dangerous for US citizens and the world to follow them down that path.

Rubio is effectively declaring the end of international law and human rights with an Orwellian claim that this protects US democracy and sovereignty. Yet disrespect for international law and human rights is translating into a similarly selective approach to domestic laws and rights, from declaring opponents to be domestic terrorists without justifiable cause, to circumventing judicial decisions, and abusing weak checks on power.

The surge in US legal challenges over free speech, discrimination, surveillance and lack of due process over the past two years was documented in the RITE report ‘The War on Palestine and the Decline of Democracy’. Most recently, US organisation DAWN instigated a case against the US administration, claiming that sanctions on ICC officials hinder their ability to gather and submit evidence and infringe their constitutional right to freedom of speech.

It is therefore unsurprising that public confidence in American democracy is faltering, with 56% of Americans saying it is not working well in a June 2026 Wall Street Journal–NORC survey.

US attacks on the rules-based system are made more dangerous by Europeans defending it rhetorically while failing to back this up with meaningful measures or by abiding by their own legal obligations. A stance that erodes the rule of law as surely as the direct attacks that the US is inflicting. The consequences are being felt by all and the time has come for politicians to show real commitment and for civil society and the media to hold them to it.

Mona Deeley is a lawyer, producer and CEO of Reform Initiative for Transparent Economies (RITE), authoring their latest report “The War on Palestine and the Decline of Democracy and the Rule of Law."

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Opinions expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect those of their employer, or of The New Arab and its editorial board or staff.