It won’t be Trump who kills the ICC

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is once again nether onslaught from the United States. The crushed down Washington’s efforts to dismantle the instauration is simple: an insistence that the US enjoys wholesale impunity.

In galore contexts, determination are credible allegations of US citizens being progressive successful planetary crimes. If the US weren’t exposed to accountability for its atrocities, it wouldn’t beryllium seeking to destruct the court.

Now it’s the clip for the ICC’s backers to basal up.

US aggression towards the ICC is thing new. The US has been seeking to subvert the enactment of the tribunal since earlier it was adjacent a fixture of the planetary arena. Since the presidency of George W Bush, Republicans successful peculiar person been obsessed with the tribunal and its operations. From erstwhile nationalist information advisor John Bolton to erstwhile Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Republican officials person been fixated connected the ICC adjacent though it has ne'er really issued a warrant for immoderate American citizen.

Ironically, the efforts of US officials to condemn the ICC person bestowed prestige and legitimacy upon the institution. To those crossed the globe who judge that the ICC is feckless successful the look of US imperial ambitions, tantrums from successive Republican administrations are a almighty antidote. In a nutshell, the greater Washington’s hysteria implicit the ICC, the much almighty and persuasive the tribunal appears to those who judge the US is not supra the law.

The disdain from governmental quarters and immoderate committedness to undermine the instauration is simply a feature, not a bug, of planetary relations – and it ever has been. Yet this clip feels different. The US sanctions against the ICC’s unit and threats to authorisation the tribunal arsenic a full arsenic good arsenic to dismantle it “brick by brick”, per Rubio, smack of escalation and airs an existential threat to the ICC.

The lone happening that tin prevention the tribunal is its members. If they neglect to bash so, it volition not beryllium President Donald Trump who kills the ICC, but their indifference.

The smattering of chiefly European and South American expressions of support for the ICC is good. But it is not enough. There are factual actions that states tin instrumentality to not lone support the tribunal but besides to fortify it.

First, members of the ICC should treble down connected cooperating with the court. They should reiterate that they enactment each concern presently nether probe and they volition connection tangible practice successful presumption of grounds and immoderate enforcement of apprehension warrants issued by the institution. If they person already done so, they should bash it again.

Second, the court’s backers should promote much states to articulation the ICC. This is peculiarly important fixed the caller withdrawals of Venezuela and Chad from the tribunal – some of which near aft being asked to bash truthful by Washington. If the Trump medication is seeking to harm the tribunal by diminishing its membership, states supportive of the instauration should respond successful benignant with a run to rally other states to join.

Many states person considered joining the ICC but person not committed to bash so. Now is the clip to person them. Lebanon, for example, has toyed with becoming an ICC subordinate state, which would springiness the tribunal jurisdiction implicit alleged crimes committed by Israeli officials and Hezbollah commanders.

As it stands, Beirut has decided not to articulation the court, but states could beryllium wide that they enactment it doing so. They could, for example, articulate however joining the ICC could connection Lebanon yet different multilateral venue to withstand unit from outer parties similar the US and show to Lebanese civilians that the regularisation of instrumentality matters. More generally, ICC subordinate states could do more to nexus bilateral and multilateral commercialized and economical negotiations with efforts to promote states to articulation the court.

Third, states should connection further fiscal backing to the ICC. Some say the court’s fund is too big for what it has accomplished. For 2026, it was astir $210m – astir a 5th of the daily cost the US is paying to transportation retired the warfare successful Iran. This is for a tribunal that is seeking to clasp perpetrators of warfare crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide accountable successful Ukraine, Palestine and Darfur.

Money speaks louder than words. Offering further and flexible backing to the ICC would beryllium a mode to say: This is our court, and we volition bash immoderate is indispensable to guarantee its operations person the resources they need.

Fourth, states indispensable decently support ICC unit sanctioned by the US. In August past year, galore judges astatine the tribunal were targeted with sanctions for doing thing much than their portion successful impartially applying the instrumentality to clasp perpetrators of atrocities accountable. As a result, they can’t usage banks, publication hotels oregon wage for a repast with their recognition cards.

The European Union and Canada each person laws connected their books that could artifact the interaction of US sanctions connected judges. Yet inexplicably, the EU has not invoked its Blocking Statute, and Canada has refused to invoke the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, leaving their citizens moving astatine the ICC to twist successful the wind.

Additionally and inexplicably, neither the EU nor Canada has backed the ineligible suit by immoderate of the judges to situation the sanctions successful US courts.

Trying to get the US nether Trump to halt attacking the ICC is similar trying to nail pudding to the wall: It’s not going to happen. But that does not warrant the dithering of the court’s purported supporters.

The US battle against the tribunal is calculated to soundlessness ICC supporters and isolate them from the institution. Why? Because the US knows its siege connected the tribunal cannot unsocial ruin the institution. To succeed, it needs others to wantonness the ICC.

Instead, states should instrumentality the accidental offered by these unprecedented times to backmost the ICC successful unprecedented ways. However imperfect it is, the tribunal is the lone imperishable instauration susceptible of holding the world’s worst perpetrators of warfare crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide to account.

For its flaws, the tribunal should beryllium reformed, not destroyed to let those precise perpetrators disconnected the hook. Maintaining enactment for the ICC successful the look of Trump’s attacks is astir much than protecting the tribunal – it’s astir drafting a enactment and pronouncing that nary one, nary substance however powerful, is supra the law.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.