The U.S. Dismantling the International Criminal Court: International Law in the Cross-Hairs

The Rome statute, a treaty that went into effect in 2002, established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in order to bring accountability even to high officials of governments who flaunt international law by committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. As of July 14, 2026, when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the American high representative on foreign policy and diplomacy, announced the intent of the Trump administration to stop at nothing less than dismantling the ICC, the U.S. had not ratified the treaty and thus was not subject to the court’s jurisdiction. However, Americans on the soil of countries that had ratified the treaty could be arrested there and sent to the ICC in the Hague if charged with having violated international law abroad. Back on U.S. territory, any such culprits would be beyond the reach of the ICC and any of the governments that were obliged by treaty to make arrests on their respective soils to implement warrants issued by the ICC. I contend that U.S. sovereignty was neither diminished or threatened by the existence of the court and the governments obliged to implement the warrants. In fact, the Trump administration may have been acting as a proxy for a foreign regime, two high government officials (at least) had been charged by the ICC and yet were still flaunting their immunity in Israel and the United States. Protecting the accused in another country of such horrendous crimes as a holocaustic genocide and falsely claiming that the ICC was an existential threat to American sovereignty as Rubio claimed on social media are not in the best interests of the U.S. even just in terms of reputational (and political) capital in international relations. Political expediency geared to protecting culprits of such a severe crime is at the very least short-sighted. In steering a large ship, a captain should look beyond the bow, as per the fateful example of the Titanic in 1912 attests. Enlightened self-interest goes a long way, whereas a narrow, contractual self-interest is apt to be hit head-on at some point. In July of 2026, the E.U. warned the world of the reckless American steering, but like a drunk driver, full of hubris liquor, the warning would go unheeded in the Hobbesian ideological belief that there is no such thing as international law in the state of nature. The bigger picture considers whether international law itself would survive the collapse of the post-World-War-II world order, which includes the ICC as well as the enforcement-impotent United Nations even concerning its own rulings and votes! Such self-inflicted impotence evinces Nietzsche’s conception of weakness, which is epitomized by celibate priests who yet seek to dominate even the strong. Netanyahu and Putin could easily flaunt the U.N. and be confident in remaining untouched by the ICC and even the feckless governments that were obliged to enforce the court’s arrest warrants. The global order was backsliding ironically as progress in technology was revolutionizing daily life in the twenty-first century.

The full essay is at "The U.S. Dismantling the International Criminal Court."

A Hobbesian World of Might-Makes-Right

In his famous text, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes the state of nature as one of might, or raw force, being the decider of what is rightly and determinatively so. If one person physically harms another person such that the latter’s food may be taken by the former, then that food belongs to the victor even without any overarching normative, or moral, constraint that says that the food still belongs to the vanquished. If Trump's statement that Putin has "won" some regions of Ukraine by military means is correct, then those occupied lands will have been decided by might as if that constitutes right. That Israel has physically decimated Gaza's cities and placed its indigenous residents in concentration camps without enough food or access to medical care with impunity means that the plight of the Palestianians has been decided by might, not right. 

The full essay is at "A Hobbesian World of Might-Makes-Right."

Guidelines Puffed Up as Law: Should under the Subterfuge of Must

During the coronavirus pandemic (2020-2022), Arizona’s Ducey administration allowed bus and light-rail employees to go maskless even though they were in close contact with the public. Bus drivers were even getting sick. The “rationale” of the Phoenix transit authority was that the federal regulation is “just a mandate.” Because the word mandate means “an authoritative command,” the rationale that being a mandate renders a law or government regulation as optional can only be spurious at best; this is a case of arrogant ignorance that can’t possibly be wrong about itself in the member-state that ranked 49^th out of 50 on public education. As an authoritative command, a law, even as implemented in regulations, has what Kant called necessity in that law itself cannot be bent; it stands firm in itself as law. In contrast, a guideline connotes flexibility rather than necessity. It follows that enforcement must pertain to laws (including regulations) but not to guidelines. I contend that what are commonly referred to as international laws are actually international guidelines. Such “laws” lack viable enforcement mechanisms and thus are actually guidelines for governments engaged in international relations.

The full essay is at "Guidelines Puffed Up as Law."

The UN in the US: Trump Bans Abbas

Should the UN’s General Assembly and Security Council be located in New York City? Both New York and the Union in which New York is a member-state have assumed the obligation of being proper hosts to people from around the world who come to the UN for its business. Even though that international organization has displayed an impotence in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli military incursion that has decimated Gaza and its residents, having an international forum in which talking can take place is not for naught. As an open speaking club of sorts, the United Nations permits adversaries and allies alike to make their views known to each other and the rest of the world. Even though the very existence of the vetoes in the Security Council styme action, that members of the UN so easily get away with violating resolutions renders the entire resolution-process de facto nugatory in real significance. So essentially, the UN building in New York City enables diplomats and heads of governments alike to speak out and with each other. It is vital, therefore, that the US take an expansive approach to issuing visa-waivers so institutional members of the UN can be as well represented as they desire to be. In this regard, the host—the United States Government—should refrain from applying its partisanship in international disputes by restricting the waivers to cover the bare essentials of personnel coming to the UN in New York from abroad.

The full essay is at "The UN in the US."

The United States: Complicit in Genocide

In December, 2024, Amnesty International, a highly reputed human rights international organization “found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.”[1] The International Criminal Court (ICC) had recently issued arrest warrants for a former defense minister and the sitting prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, and the UN’s high court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had also ruled that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank violates international law. When Amnesty’s report came out, the ICJ was considering whether to declare a genocide in Gaza. Considering the series of determinations against Israel in Gaza, did it matter that the ICJ had not yet ruled specifically on genocide? Formally yes, but the currency of formal rulings and determinations regarding Israel based on international law had lost considerable de facto value, given Israel’s ongoing infliction of such widespread and dire suffering on civilians in not only Gaza, and Russia’s attacks in Ukraine (the ICC had already issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s sitting president. Oddly, news that Israel was committing an apartheid genocide seemed at the time to be old news, whereas that the U.S. was complicit, as an accomplice in providing the weapons, in a genocide was news.

The full essay is at "The United States: Complicit in Genocide." 

---

1. Amnesty International, “Amnesty International Investigation Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza,” Amnesty.org, December 5, 2024.

The ICC Indicts Israeli and Hamas Officials: On the Perils of Absolutist National Sovereignty

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and the military commander of Hamas on November 21, 2024. With the world having had centuries wherein national sovereignty has been the basis of the international order, the heads of national governments could be expected to instantly bolt from just being indicted by an international court. Since the world woke up in 1945 to learn of the Nazi atrocities against Slavs (20 million), Jews (6 million), intellectuals and gays, whether murdered in concentration camps or on the proverbial street, as well as reading as years went by of Stalin’s mass-graves from his government’s mass-murders of Ukrainians, Poles, and even Russians, the hegemonic doctrine that the sovereignty of a state should be absolute has been barely subject to any resistance. So when the ICC has issued arrest warrants, it has been up to national governments around the world to enforce the warrants by arresting the heads of other governments charged with having violated international law. This weakness in the constraint on what would otherwise be absolutist national sovereignty attests to the marginal degree to which that doctrine has actually been questioned since 1945. In other words, the international order can be said to occupy a rather uncomfortable ‘betwixt and between’ position with respect to whether the sovereignty of countries should be constrained internationally. Not until international law comes complete with real enforcement powers will the world be able to say that heads of governments (and of state) are no longer in a state of nature as described by Thomas Hobbes in his tomb, Leviathan.   

The full essay is at "The ICC Indicts Israeli and Hamas Officials."

On the Reach of the International Criminal Court

Deeply hindered by the lack of enforcement mechanisms, international law can too easily be evaded or violated outright by government officials of countries who easily sense the ability to act so with impunity. Was the president of Mongolia such an official, and thus to be considered as blameworthy, when he did not have Russia’s President Putin arrested as soon as he touched down on Mongolian soil and sent to the International Criminal Court in 2024 for war crimes committed in Ukraine, including forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia? Is Mongolia’s acquiescence just another case of the implacable impotence of international law?

The full essay is at "On the Reach of the International Criminal Court."

Euroskeptic Federalism: Obstructing the E.U.'s Recognition of Palestine

Just because U.S. federalism deposits foreign policy exclusively with governmental institutions at the federal level does not mean that that domain cannot be shared between state and federal governments in a federal system. This was precisely the case in the E.U. as it struggled to come up with a unified response to Israel having ignored the verdict of the World Court—the UN’s court—ordering Israel to cease and decease from invading Rafah from May 24, 2024 onward. Meanwhile, two of the E.U.’s states were poised to recognize Palestine. Such emphasis on the state governments playing the leading role is fraught with difficulties even though in theory there is on reason why foreign policy cannot be a competency, or domain, that is shared at the state and federal “levels.” In federalism, the federal and state governmental systems are on par, rather than one of the governmental systems being above the other, so “levels” is misleading. Even so, a lot can be said for delegating foreign policy to the federal level. This can be seen from the state and federal reactions in the E.U. as Israel continued its invasion of Rafah just after the World Court had ruled that Israel would be violating international law and the UN’s charter in continuing the offensive.

The full essay is at "The E.U. on Israel."

Mubarak Convicted in Egypt: A Precedent for Human Rights?

On June 2, 2012, an Egyptian court sentenced former President Hosni Mubarak to life in prison for being an accomplice in the killing of unarmed demonstrators during the protests in the “Arab Spring.” The significance of this verdict in terms of human rights from an international standpoint lies in the fact that the accountability on a ruler was accomplished by his own citizens—meaning the country’s own court. Lest the International Criminal Court be reckoned as coming up short in terms of being able to arrest and convict sitting or former rulers of states, the verdict from Egypt says, in effect, there is an alternative. Governments can fortify the independence of their respective judiciaries such that public officials can be held accountable domestically. Under this scenario, the ICC would be of value to the world particularly if it could be fortified to step in where states do not have court systems strong enough to arrest and try a current or former ruler. In other words, we ought not forget the alternative of national courts when we bemoan the weaknesses of the ICC.

The full essay is at "Mubarak Convicted in Egypt."