On July 14, 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a new campaign aimed at “disciplining and dismantling” the International Criminal Court — not by questioning its authority or cutting its budget, but by seeking its elimination as an institutional matter. This action is not an isolated expression of frustration; it is the latest in a series of “institutional elimination” operations undertaken since the start of the second Trump administration: withdrawing from international agreements, sanctioning court officials, and now publicly demanding that other nations leave the Rome Statute.
Rubio's Logic — The Two Faces of “Sovereignty” and “Impunity”
In his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Rubio painted a picture of an American law enforcement officer being judged by a foreign tribunal. The narrative's cunning lies in its exploitation of a near-irrefutable political correctness framework — who would say “no” to the idea of “protecting Americans” from being tried by an international court?
But legal experts were quick to identify the logical gap. Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, pointed out: “The ICC does not assert jurisdiction over acts occurring on US soil.” In fact, the ICC's jurisdiction extends only to crimes committed in the territory of states that have ratified the Rome Statute — the United States has never ratified the treaty, and the Court has never opened an investigation into crimes committed on American soil.
“Rubio is invoking ‘national sovereignty’ as a pretext to seek impunity for US war crimes, while ignoring the sovereign right of other states to have recourse to the ICC for crimes committed on their territory.”
This statement reveals the two-layer structure of Rubio's operation: the surface layer is a “protect sovereignty” security narrative; the inner layer is an “seek impunity” demand for exemption. The tension between them lies in the following: if other states can consent to ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed on their territory, then America's “sovereignty concern” as a non-state party is actually a question of “who should try crimes committed by US citizens on foreign soil.”
The Toolbox — From Sanctions to Diplomatic Pressure
The State Department's “dismantling” plan contains three parallel instruments of pressure:
- Sanctions. Six weeks into his second term, President Trump declared a “national emergency” by executive order, imposing sanctions on ICC officials including Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, two deputies, and six judges, citing investigations into Israeli actions in Palestine and the conduct of US military personnel in Afghanistan. Sanctions were later extended to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory and three Palestinian human rights organizations.
- Visa weaponization. Rubio plans to impose travel bans and visa revocations on countries that “accept ICC jurisdiction while relying on US aid” — a lever that links compliance with international law to bilateral assistance. This instrument is more flexible than sanctions and harder for international opinion to label as “sanctions” and thus counter.
- Pressure to withdraw from the Rome Statute. The core objective is to trigger a sufficient wave of withdrawals among ICC member states to inflict irreversible damage on the Court's institutional legitimacy. One official told CNN that countries that “refuse to refuse” ICC jurisdiction “are likely to face heightened scrutiny.”
The Selective Embrace — The Trump Administration's Ambivalent Relationship with the ICC
Another structural flaw in Rubio's campaign is its inherent inconsistency of position. The Trump administration sometimes praises the ICC's jurisdictional concept — for instance welcoming investigations into war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, because Ukraine is a signatory to the Rome Statute. Yet when the ICC's investigative gaze turned toward Israel — Trump's close ally — the Court suddenly became an “illegitimate political tool.”
Consular Chit-Chat (Lingshi Xiantan), a Chinese commentary account, summarized this dynamic in five Chinese characters: “乖则用，不乖则弃” — “obey, use it; disobey, discard it.” These five words explain the basic US approach to international law more clearly than a thousand-word analysis: the validity of international law depends on whether it serves current American political objectives. When the ICC prosecutes Russia, it is an instrument of justice. When the ICC investigates Israel and the United States, it is a threat that needs to be “dismantled.”
The Real-World Impact on the ICC
How much damage Rubio's “dismantling” campaign can actually inflict remains unclear. Since its founding in 2002, the ICC has developed a degree of “institutional immunity” to US sanctions at the operational level — its day-to-day operating budget comes from member-state contributions, and the salaries of judges and prosecutors are not directly controlled by the United States.
But the real threat lies not at the budget level, but at the level of institutional legitimacy. If Rubio's diplomatic pressure succeeds in pushing a group of developing countries out of the Rome Statute, the ICC will face a crisis far more severe than a budget cut: a shrinking number of member states means a shrinking geographical scope of jurisdiction, feeding a public perception that “the Court only prosecutes small countries and dare not touch the big ones” — precisely the narrative effect Rubio is aiming to achieve.
A former senior US sanctions official, speaking anonymously, offered a precise description of this dynamic: “When sanctions are working, you use sanctions to lock in the results achieved through diplomacy.” This statement captures the relationship between sanctions and diplomacy: sanctions are not the end; they are the precondition that makes diplomatic pressure effective.