The U.S. campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court has gained momentum with five countries moving to quit the tribunal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday.
“We’ve had dozens of countries already join us in this effort since we started two weeks ago,” he said during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat at Camp David in western Maryland.
Since mid-June, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Venezuela and Chad have notified the ICC that they are quitting. It takes a year for a country to complete its withdrawal from the ICC.
Mr. Rubio also warned that American servicemen — not just foreign leaders — face the most direct threat from the ICC’s reach, with soldiers possibly facing indictments decades after fighting in wars.
“The International Criminal Court is an illegitimate international organization,” he said. “They make themselves illegitimate because they claim that even if you’re not a member of that court, they can come after you.”
“The people who are in the biggest danger in our system are servicemen, people in uniform that they’ll try to go out for the rest of their lives will not be able to travel anywhere in the world with their families, because they could be arrested on one of these,” Mr. Rubio said. “Imagine you’re a soldier, you fought in a war, and 20 years later, they try to come grab you.”
The U.S. first attempted to get the ICC to reform from within, but after the court refused, the administration escalated to the current campaign to dismantle it.
Mr. Rubio noted that the Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who indicted President Trump after his first term, was a former ICC official.
“If you want to know a little bit about it, Jack Smith used to work there. These are the people that think they can go out and basically indict any world leader and haul them into the Hague,” he said.
Mr. Trump acknowledged that he could hypothetically be targeted by the ICC, though he said there is no indication he is currently being pursued by the court.
“There’s no information that they’re after me. It could happen. Just so you know, he’s talking about it. That means he’s not trying to defend me,” the president said.
Mr. Rubio said he expects more nations to withdraw from the ICC.
The Trump administration has brought sanctions against Karim Khan, the ICC’s former chief prosecutor, who was recently removed from his post, and several other ICC staff in retaliation for warrants the court issued against Israeli officials over the war in Gaza and investigations of U.S. officials in Afghanistan.
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