When the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, human rights groups applauded the decision to go after the leaders of major powers, not just African dictators and warlords that were the court’s usual targets.
After more than 18 months of investigation and debate, ICC member countries voted last month to oust Khan . Based in The Hague, the ICC was created in 1998 to cement the role of international law in punishing the worst human rights abuses. Yet questions about its authority and power have been a central concern ever since nations signed the Rome Statute.
The sanctions have also gummed up its daily operations: Fearing that Microsoft would stop working with the ICC, the court ditched Microsoft Office in favor of an inferior German open-source operating system that has hamstrung the institution, officials said. “Its general problem is it can’t get the perpetrators in custody,” said Stephen Rapp, the former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes and chairman for the Commission for International Justice and Accountability. In 2021, shortly after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, Khan decided to “deprioritize” the court’s investigation into alleged crimes committed by U.S. forces and focus instead on those committed by the Taliban.
The Trump administration has pledged to dismantle the ICC, following up on a raft of sanctions it levied against court officials over the Netanyahu warrant . This month, the U.S. slapped sanctions on ICC President Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, a Senegalese lawyer who is leading the court’s investigation of Israel. Meanwhile, Putin has traveled to two ICC member nations—Mongolia and Tajikistan—that have refused requests from the court to arrest the Russian president. European nations have also cast doubt on whether they would execute the Netanyahu warrant should the Israeli leader visit. U.S. pressure recently led Venezuela and Chad to announce their withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the court’s founding treaty. The clashes have threatened years of work by the ICC and its backers to establish the authority of the court. Sexual assault allegations against Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan have further damaged the ICC’s credibility. An institution with a mission that includes prosecuting sexual violence was led by a man accused of coercing one of his aides into sex on multiple occasions over many months. It’s heir to the Nuremberg tribunals and special courts established to prosecute crimes from the Balkan wars, the Rwandan genocide and other conflicts of the 20th century. Some of the world’s most powerful and populous nations—the U.S., China, India and Russia—aren’t members of the court. Israel isn’t either. “The court has not been effective as a judicial institution even when it has had the perpetrators in custody. Though the ICC treaty allows such investigations, the chief prosecutor can also decline to step in if the chances of a successful prosecution are low.
