ICC Leaders Warn Trump Campaign Erodes Global Law

The current and former presidents of the International Criminal Court's governing body say the campaign to isolate the court diplomatically is aimed at eroding confidence in the international legal order — a warning aimed squarely at the Trump administration, which has sanctioned ICC officials and is pressing member countries to quit.

The warning came in a joint op-ed published Thursday on the website of Just Security, a law and policy journal.

It was signed by Paivi Kaukoranta, president of the ICC's Assembly of States Parties, and seven of her predecessors.

What They Said

"Efforts to isolate the Court diplomatically — whether by encouraging States Parties to withdraw from the Rome Statute or urging non-States Parties to join measures intended to weaken it — are aimed at eroding not only one institution, but confidence in the international legal order itself," the authors wrote.

Defending the court, they said, "is about preserving the international legal order as we have built it, as humanity's strongest safeguard against a descent into lawlessness and impunity." The choice, they wrote, is "between a world based on the rule of law and one where might decides what is right."

The authors pushed back on the argument that the ICC tramples national sovereignty, saying states that join treaties and international institutions are exercising sovereignty rather than surrendering it. They also stressed the court does not replace national justice systems: "The ICC is a court of last resort."

They called on the court's 125 member states, along with international and regional organizations, to give the ICC political, legal and practical backing and to help governments resist pressure to weaken it. "Now is the time to strengthen the institutions that uphold international law, not dismantle them."