Marco Rubio Draws A Line Against An International Power Grab

Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed the Trump administration’s anti-globalism campaign forward on Monday and took aim at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which Rubio called the “unaccountable arbiter of a new global law.”

The ICC claims it possesses authority to prosecute American officials and servicemen who work for America’s interests. The secretary wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on the ICC’s latest affronts to American law. Rubio said the ICC wants to remove America’s sovereignty.

“They believe that they should be in charge of your laws, of your country, your life — and they don’t care whether or not you agree,” Rubio said.

Rubio perceives the ICC’s actions as waging war against the United States under the guise of “international law.” He added that the court is filled with “unelected globalist bureaucrats” who assert nearly limitless authority.

“The ICC is backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernmental organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.,” Rubio wrote.

The ICC has taken action against the United States in recent years, including launching an investigation into “war crimes by members of the United States armed forces” in Afghanistan.

Last year, major activist groups pushed the court to prosecute the Trump administration for deporting violent illegal immigrants to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center. Rubio also pointed out that, last year, a former chief prosecutor of the ICC accused the United States of violating international law by issuing an airstrike against an alleged drug smuggling boat — what the former chief prosecutor claimed was “a crime against humanity.” The former ICC prosecutor also called U.S. servicemen “criminals, not soldiers.” 

“If we stand idle, all of them [American servicemen] would be at the mercy of foreign judges thousands of miles away, facing the constant risk of prosecution and even imprisonment for the so-called ‘crime’ of defending their own country,” Rubio added in a video released Monday.

The State Department also released a document on Monday detailing Rubio’s campaign against the ICC, which includes calling on the senior leadership of other nations to discuss the threat the ICC poses and encouraging withdrawal from the international court. Rubio is also pushing for greater scrutiny of nations that continue to comply with the ICC while using U.S. assistance and encouraging other nations not aligned with the ICC to “leverage their diplomatic networks” and take action along with the United States.

The department also imposed visa bans and travel restrictions on ICC personnel and greater sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organizations. 

The ICC was originally established in 2002 to prosecute only the most serious offenses, such as genocide or war crimes, and only if a nation’s court couldn’t prosecute these issues on its own. It marketed itself as a global backdrop, not seeking to interfere with nations’ internal affairs. However, Rubio listed several examples of the ICC overstepping its bounds and seeking to remove America’s sovereignty, in addition to its targeting of the Trump administration over actions taken on immigration and national security concerns. 

In March, the American organization Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) told Iran to file a “declaration” to allow the ICC to have “jurisdiction over crimes committed on its territory since the war began” against the United States. The ICC has also called for arrest warrants against Israeli officials, and 12 U.S. senators told the ICC that such action would be perceived as a threat to both Israel’s sovereignty and the United States.

“The United States will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies,” the 12 senators wrote in response. “Target Israel and we will target you.” 

The ICC responded in a post on social media, saying that anyone who threatens to retaliate against the court is an “offense against the administration of justice.”