Statement Condemning the U.S. Government’s Campaign to Dismantle the International Criminal Court

The New York City Bar Association (“City Bar”) deplores the sweeping campaign announced by the United States government to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”). The campaign against the ICC is a campaign against international criminal justice. It is neither authorized by Congress nor consistent with United States law, which explicitly authorizes the investigation and prosecution of atrocity crimes carried out by U.S. and other governments’ officials, wherever those crimes occur. The campaign further undermines the rules-based international order, under which all states and their officials are accountable for the commission of atrocities. We call on Congress to assert its constitutional powers to prevent the administration’s attack against the mechanisms of international justice.

The ICC is a core component of international human rights and criminal justice

On July 13, 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a “whole of government” campaign to “systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.”^[1] The campaign threatens to expand existing sanctions and visa restrictions against the Court’s judges, prosecutors, and staff; presses the Court’s member states to withdraw from the Rome Statute and to cut off financial support to the Court; and warns that governments that continue to support the ICC while relying on United States assistance will face heightened scrutiny.^[2] The campaign is based on false premises about the jurisdiction of the ICC and the relationship of the United States to the Court and to international criminal justice.

The ICC, in operation since 2002, is a vital component of the international system of justice and human rights – a system that the United States helped build in the decades following World War II. It is the only permanent institution specifically designed to investigate, prosecute and achieve legal accountability for the most serious international crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.[3] Uniquely, it provides services to victims of atrocity.

As noted in a unanimous 2022 U.S. Senate resolution supporting the ICC investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian forces in Ukraine:

[The ICC] is an international tribunal that seeks to uphold the rule of law, especially in areas where no rule of law exists, by investigating and trying individuals charged “with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.”^[4]

U.S. Historical Support for International Criminal Prosecutions and Accountability for Atrocity Crimes

The United States played a central role in the post-World War II Nuremberg trials and in the creation of the post-Nuremberg system of human rights and individual criminal accountability that the ICC now carries forward. The core crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC, commonly understood as “atrocity crimes” are: war crimes (grave breaches of the laws of war), crimes against humanity (atrocities such as mass murder and rape as part of a widespread and systematic campaign), genocide (the crime of attempting to destroy, in whole or in part, a group people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, race or nationality), and aggression (the use of armed force against another country without legal justification). All but the crime of genocide were crimes prosecuted by the United States and its allies at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, 1946-1948. The United States has also criminalized atrocity crimes under federal law.

At the international level, the United States supported and actively worked to create the International Criminal Courts for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), ad hoc international courts that preceded the ICC. Across administrations of both parties, the United States has likewise supported, funded, and helped staff a succession of international and hybrid criminal tribunals — including the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (the Khmer Rouge tribunal), the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the Extraordinary African Chambers that tried Hissène Habré, and the Kosovo Specialist Chambers.[5] And the United States actively participated in the drafting process of the 1998 Rome Statute that created the ICC.

The United States signed the Rome Statute creating the ICC but has never ratified the treaty and is therefore not a member state of the Court.[6] Nonetheless, the United States has – across administrations of both parties – facilitated and sometimes actively supported the Court’s work. This includes supporting the prosecution of atrocities committed in Darfur, Libya, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine.^[7] The United States’ past cooperation with the ICC has been consistent with its commitments to upholding the rule of law and advancing international justice mechanisms. And while U.S. compliance with international criminal law and justice has been inconsistent, the Trump administration’s active assault on the ICC is a regrettable departure from these earlier U.S. commitments to the ideals of criminal accountability for atrocity crimes.[8]

City Bar Support for International Criminal Justice and the International Rule of Law

The New York City Bar Association has long supported and monitored the work of the ICC, including issuing a report in 2002 urging that the Court be established.^[9] The City Bar has repeatedly called on the United States to ratify the Rome Statute and become a party to the Court.^[10]  We have also spoken out against imposition of U.S. sanctions against the ICC in specific contexts.^[11]

Since January 2025, executive orders by the Trump administration, promulgated after the U.S. Congress declined to impose sanctions by statute, have penalized fifteen individual ICC judges, court officials, and several human rights nongovernmental organizations. The administration has paired these measures with dismantling the U.S. government’s own machinery for pursuing international justice: it abolished the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice — the office responsible since 1997 for United States support to war-crimes and atrocity prosecutions — and gutted the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.^[12]

Secretary Rubio’s recent announcement goes far further even than these destructive actions, threatening a “whole of government” campaign to “systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate” through diplomatic pressure and threatened withdrawal of economic and security assistance and cooperation with state members. Much of this destructive effort would be directed at vital U.S. allies who are actively engaged with the ICC, including our NATO allies, all of whom (with the exception of Turkey) are members of the Court.

All of the Parties to the ICC made independent and sovereign decisions to ratify the Rome Statute and become members of the Court. The current administration’s attack on ICC staff and member states is counter to the U.S. commitments as a signatory of the UN Charter to promote justice and human rights.^[13] Further, interfering in ICC Member States’ lawful exercise of their sovereign and independent authority to support international investigations and prosecutions, including to provide financial and other support for the Court and coordination and cooperation with ICC investigations and prosecutions, may violate customary international law.[14]

The U.S. campaign would secure impunity for atrocity crimes

The ICC does not pose any threat to U.S. sovereignty – despite Secretary Rubio’s assertions. The ICC has no jurisdiction over allegations of any crimes committed on sovereign U.S. territory. The only exception is if allegations of atrocity crimes are referred to the Court by the UN Security Council.  As the United States holds veto power at the Council, it is entirely protected from any exercise of such jurisdiction without its consent.

States have the sovereign right to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes – and any other crimes – committed on their own territory.  States also possess the right to consent, through treaty, to grant jurisdiction to the ICC to prosecute those crimes. If atrocity crimes are committed by an individual on the territory of a state, it is not a violation of any other foreign state’s political or legal independence for the impacted state to prosecute the crime itself, or to consent to the ICC prosecution of those crimes. It is exactly this ICC territorial jurisdiction that the United States has supported in the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, based on Ukraine having accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC. Further, under the principle of complementarity embedded in the Rome Statute, the United States can avoid this territorial jurisdiction by conducting its own bona fide investigation of any allegations of atrocity crimes committed by any U.S. individuals in foreign states.

The U.S. campaign to destroy the ICC appears, by design, likely to secure impunity from international criminal justice for atrocity crimes committed in the territorial jurisdiction of states that are parties to the Court.[15]  The United States now appears to be standing up for impunity for perpetrators.

The City Bar calls upon the United States to abandon this unfounded and destructive campaign against the ICC. The City Bar further underscores its support for the right of other UN Member States and of civil society organizations, NGOs, and private corporations to continue to support the vital work of the Court and the right of individual lawyers, judges and other staff and advocates to work for the ICC as a legally constituted international court and institution. We call upon Congress to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to international justice for mass atrocity crimes. We further call on Congress to meet its constitutional duty to ensure that U.S. constitutional and statutory law is respected with regard to any current or future unilateral acts by the Trump administration to sanction or otherwise punish any persons, organizations or states for their work with the ICC or any other legally constituted mechanisms of international justice.