Trump can demonstrate his commitment to our national sovereignty by attacking an institution that poses a direct threat to it: the International Criminal Court.
The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes in Gaza demonstrate, once again, the absurdity of that institution. The warrants discredit the ICC and complicate the prospects for peace in Gaza. But they also allow President-elect Donald Trump to strike a blow for American national sovereignty.
The ICC has ordered the arrest of Netanyahu and Gallant for allegedly violating the laws of war, principally, in the ICC prosecutor’s words, by executing a “plan to use starvation as a method of war and other acts of violence against the Gazan civilian population.”
The ICC has finally achieved what the war could not: full agreement between Netanyahu and the Biden administration, which promptly denounced the ICC’s decision. So did Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., whom President-elect Trump has designated as his national security adviser. The ICC also created an obstacle to peace negotiations: Netanyahu declared that Israel will now seek “total victory” in Gaza.
The ICC is a product of gauzy, utopian 1990s thinking. According to the then-conventional wisdom, national sovereignty was receding before the irresistible forces of multilateralism and globalization. Nations could not be trusted to enforce the laws of war against themselves, so a supranational institution would have to provide a judge, jury, and executioner all wrapped up in one. But even though the Clinton administration participated in the drafting that led to the Rome Statute — the treaty that created the ICC — the United States did not ratify it and is not a party to it. The world’s other leading military powers — China, Russia, India, and Israel — also refused to join. […]
— Read More: thefederalist.com
