Rubio launches diplomatic effort to dismantle International Criminal Court amid row over sanctions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday a diplomatic effort to dismantle the International Criminal Court amid a worsening row between the court and the United States regarding sanctions.

The effort comes after three of the court’s judges filed a lawsuit last month against the Trump administration in New York, arguing the sanctions that were levied against them last year were unlawful. The court was created under the Rome Statute in 2002 to prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Rubio accused the court in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and a video on social media of being run by "globalist bureaucrats." 

“The U.S. is launching a diplomatic campaign with a simple message — sovereign states over globalism,” Rubio wrote in the op-ed. “Using all the tools at our government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common cause, we will dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary.”

The secretary also accused the ICC in his op-ed of being “backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.”

A State Department official told Reuters the tools include travel bans, visa revocations, increased sanctions against the court and diplomatic pressure on other nations to withdraw from the ICC. 

The comments come after the Trump administration sanctioned the court over a case against Israel last year, in which the court issued arrest warrants for multiple Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the war against Hamas.

The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and is not bound by the ICC.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.