The State Department has launched a campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court over what Secretary of State Marco Rubio called a threat to American sovereignty.
The campaign, announced on Monday, involves a “whole-of-government response to systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.” The Trump Administration is also urging other countries to join the campaign.
The ICC was established by a 2002 treaty to investigate and prosecute war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity when a member of the treaty is unable or unwilling to prosecute the crimes on its own. The U.S. signed but never ratified the Rome Statute, and the ICC has never opened an investigation into alleged crimes committed on U.S. territory.
The court has, however, taken actions against President Donald Trump’s ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It has also opened investigations into American actions overseas, including alleged war crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. Some human rights organizations and legal experts have also argued that U.S. strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific and the U.S. abduction of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro could fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction, as Venezuela is a party to the Rome Statute. The ICC has not opened a formal investigation into the U.S. conduct.
In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Rubio warned of “a world in which U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control.”
“If we stand idle, all of them will 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 said in a video posted on X.
TIME has reached out to the ICC for comment.
Why is the Trump Administration targeting the ICC?
Trump has openly expressed dislike of the court since his first term. In September 2018, Trump said at the U.N. General Assembly that the ICC had “no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority” over the U.S.
After the ICC moved toward investigating alleged U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in March 2020 that the court was “an unaccountable political institution masquerading as a legal body.”
In June 2020, Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency over the ICC’s attempts to investigate U.S. personnel, calling the court’s actions “illegitimate assertions of jurisdiction.” The order authorized sanctions and visa restrictions on certain ICC officials.
Trump’s antagonism towards the court ramped up after the office of the ICC prosecutor opened an investigation into possible Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 in connection with the investigation.
Early into his second term, Trump again declared a national emergency over what he said was the ICC’s “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.” The executive order authorized sanctions on ICC officials that supported investigations involving the U.S. or its allies. The sanctions included asset freezes, restrictions on financial transactions, and travel bans.
The sanctions were imposed on ICC prosecutor Karim Khan and several of the court’s judges. The Trump Administration later expanded the sanctions to include U.N. special rapporteur on human rights Francesca Albanese and three Palestinian human rights groups, accusing them of supporting the ICC’s investigations. Rubio said the sanctions were imposed on Albanese because she had “directly engaged with the International Criminal Court” in efforts to investigate or prosecute U.S. and Israeli nationals.
In his op-ed, Rubio argued that the ICC was “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.”
Last month, three ICC judges sued the Trump Administration challenging the 2025 sanctions. The lawsuit, which was filed in New York, is the first time that sitting ICC judges have sued the U.S. government. In the complaint, the judges argued that the sanctions were an attempt to exert “extra-judicial pressure” on the court and undermine their judicial independence.
Some observers have suggested that the State Department’s new campaign is an attempt to preempt possible ICC investigations related to the U.S. military campaign in Venezuela earlier this year. The U.S. carried out dozens of strikes on boats in international waters that killed more than 200 people beginning last September as the Trump Administration alleged the vessels were linked to drug-trafficking from Venezuela.
Human rights organizations have also called for investigations into whether the Trump Administration’s deportations to El Salvador violated international human rights law.
While Iran is not a party to the Rome Statute, U.S. military actions also came under scrutiny after the bombing of a primary school in Minab, Iran, that killed more than 100 children, as well as strikes that hit civilian infrastructure.
Rubio rejected the criticisms and calls for investigations in his op-ed, explicitly referencing Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), one of the organizations that has called for legal examination of U.S. actions.
In a statement, DAWN’s Advocacy Director Raed Jarrar said, “When the world’s most powerful country aims to dismantle the world’s only permanent international court, it sends the message that the powerful are above the law. It is not the ICC that Rubio is dismantling brick by brick–but the rules-based international order that grew out of the ashes of World War II.”
What is the campaign?
The campaign could involve more visa revocations and travel bans for ICC personnel as well as increased sanctions against the court and affiliated organizations, the State Department said.
The Administration is also seeking to pressure other countries to join the campaign, especially countries that partner with U.S. law enforcement and the U.S. military. These nations are “called upon to reject the ICC’s purported authority to prosecute American officials and servicemen,” the Department said.
A U.S. official told CNN that top officials are making diplomatic calls to foreign leaders to persuade them to withdraw from the ICC and cut off financial support to the court.
Countries that rely on U.S. assistance but refuse to reject the ICC’s authority could come under increased scrutiny, according to the announcement.
“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,” Rubio wrote in the op-ed.
