War crimes court turns 'blind eye' to top world threats while targeting Americans, Trump admin accuses
FIRST ON FOX: The Trump administration is escalating its campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing the Hague-based tribunal of ignoring atrocities committed by authoritarian regimes while unlawfully targeting the U.S. and its service members.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told Fox News Digital that the ICC has "violated international law by targeting the United States and American servicemen" while it has "repeatedly turned a blind eye to the abuses of despotic regimes that fund terrorism, brutally suppress and torture their citizens, and carry out crimes against humanity."
The remarks are the latest step in the administration's broader effort to weaken the court, which U.S. officials argue has exceeded its authority by investigating Americans despite the U.S. never joining the Rome Statute that established the ICC. Earlier this year, the administration imposed sanctions on senior ICC officials and pledged to continue a diplomatic campaign against the tribunal.
Pigott vowed the U.S. "will continue its diplomatic campaign to systematically dismantle the court."
The administration has already imposed sanctions on ICC officials and launched a diplomatic campaign urging allies to reject the court's authority and reconsider their membership in the Rome Statute.
The department argued the ICC has never opened a preliminary examination into Iran despite decades of allegations of human rights abuses, including the suppression of protests, executions of political prisoners and state sponsorship of terrorism. It also noted that the court closed a preliminary examination into North Korea without opening a full investigation and has not pursued further action despite a 2014 U.N. report documenting crimes against humanity.
It also criticized the court's handling of ISIS and Syria, arguing the tribunal has failed to pursue accountability despite documented atrocities committed by the terror group and the Assad regime.
The ICC's authority is limited by the Rome Statute that created the court. Iran, North Korea and Syria are not parties to the treaty, meaning the court generally cannot prosecute crimes committed on their territory unless another jurisdictional basis exists or the U.N. Security Council refers the situation. Security Council efforts involving Syria have previously been blocked by Russian and Chinese vetoes.
The administration argues those jurisdictional limitations do not excuse what it describes as the court's willingness to pursue Americans.
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According to the State Department, the ICC "engaged in jurisdictional overreach" by investigating alleged actions by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan even though the U.S. is not a party to the Rome Statute.
The ICC could not immediately be reached for comment.
In 2020, the court authorized an investigation into alleged war crimes committed during the war in Afghanistan, including by Taliban fighters, Afghan security forces and U.S. military personnel and CIA officers.
The investigation examined allegations that some U.S. personnel committed torture, cruel treatment and other abuses in Afghanistan, as well as at CIA "black sites" in Poland, Romania and Lithuania, all of which are parties to the Rome Statute. Because those alleged crimes occurred on the territory of ICC member states, prosecutors argued the court had jurisdiction even though the U.S. is not a member.
The CIA's black-site program emerged after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and involved the secret detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects at clandestine facilities overseas.
A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report detailed the program, describing the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," including waterboarding, and concluded the methods were more brutal than previously acknowledged and did not produce unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence.
The report also described secret detention facilities in countries including Afghanistan, Poland, Romania and Lithuania.
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The latest criticism comes amid one of the most contentious periods in the relationship between Washington and the Hague-based court.
The U.S. has long objected to the ICC's investigation into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, arguing the court lacks jurisdiction over Americans because the U.S. is not a party to the Rome Statute.
The dispute intensified further after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the war in Gaza, a move the U.S. rejected as illegitimate.
Since returning to office, the Trump administration has made confronting the ICC a central foreign policy priority, imposing sanctions on multiple judges, prosecutors and other officials while vowing to dismantle what Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described as a "fatally politicized" institution that threatens U.S. and allied sovereignty.