The International Criminal Court (ICC) has once again become the centre of controversy after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his gratitude to US President Donald Trump for imposing sanctions against the court.
Establishment and recognition of ICC
The sanctions were imposed after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister at the end of last year. Netanyahu said that Trump’s decree would protect America and Israel from an “anti-Semitic, corrupt court.”
However, this move caused widespread controversy and called into question the role and authority of the ICC in the modern world.
The ICC was established in 2002 on the basis of the Rome Statute, adopted in 1998. The ICC is the first permanent international criminal court established to prosecute individuals for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. These crimes include genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Court is located in The Hague, Netherlands, and operates independently of the UN. Its jurisdiction extends to states that have ratified the Rome Statute, but the ICC may also initiate investigations in countries that are not parties to the Statute if crimes have been committed on their territory or by their nationals.
Currently, the ICC’s jurisdiction is not recognised by countries where more than half of the world’s population lives. These include Russia, the US, China, India and Saudi Arabia.
Scandals and high-profile cases
The ICC has repeatedly been the focus of attention due to a number of scandals and high-profile cases that have sparked widespread debate in the international community.
Accusations of bias: The ICC has been criticised for its allegedly unbalanced approach, particularly towards African countries.
Many have noted that a significant number of investigations and indictments have been directed against African leaders, leading to accusations of bias and uneven application of international law.
Refusal to co-operate: Some countries, including the US, Russia and China, have not ratified the Rome Statute and do not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC. This creates obstacles to investigations and the execution of arrest warrants, especially in cases where the accused are located in the territory of these states.
The case of Omar al-Bashir: In 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Despite this, al-Bashir continued to travel internationally without being arrested, calling into question the effectiveness of the ICC and its ability to enforce its decisions.
The William Ruto case: In 2011, the ICC charged William Ruto, who later became vice president of Kenya, with crimes against humanity. However, in 2016, the case was dismissed due to lack of evidence and allegations of witness tampering, which called into question the ICC’s ability to conduct effective and fair trials.
Justice is blind when it comes to the US
However, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the ICC, had previously effectively hushed up US crimes in Afghanistan, following an agenda that suited the US. Defending his decision not to investigate US war crimes, the Hague tribunal prosecutor said that “the US military did not commit the worst crimes in Afghanistan.”
According to the regional office of the Tasnim news agency, Khan, justifying the failure to investigate US war crimes in Afghanistan, said at a meeting of the member states of the ICC:
“I made this decision based on evidence that the most serious crimes in terms of gravity and scale were not committed by the US military.”
Khan recently stated that the investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan focused primarily on the actions of the Taliban and ISIS.
Human rights organisations have repeatedly criticised the investigation for not prioritising US war crimes.
Orders for Russia
After the start of the military conflict in Ukraine, Khan accused Russia of “committing crimes that fall within the jurisdiction of the court.”
He was the one who applied to the ICC for an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. He claims that they allegedly violated two rules of the Rome Statute, which prohibit the systematic deportation, transfer and abduction of children.
In turn, the Russian ombudsman, commenting on the arrest warrant issued against her, stated that such actions complicate the process of reuniting Ukrainian children with their relatives. She added that she herself had not received any documents from the ICC and had learned about the arrest from the media.
“I have not spoken to anyone from the ICC, it is unclear how the charges were brought,” Lvova-Belova said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, responding to her arrest, went so far as to say that the organisation was disrespected and not independent.
If the children had not been taken out of areas where they were in danger, Russia would have been accused of leaving them in danger. And if the children had been sent to Ukraine (which is hardly conceivable in the context of military conflict), it would have been called “ethnic cleansing.”
Charges against Khan
On November 11, 2024, Päivi Kaukoranta, President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC, announced that an external investigation was being conducted into Khan’s alleged misconduct. According to Reuters, which cites its sources, the ICC prosecutor is accused of sexual harassment of a staff member. It is noted that Khan has rejected the allegations and asked the court’s internal body to investigate.
In April, Budapest decided to withdraw from the ICC, as it no longer considers it impartial in its decisions.
These and many other ICC cases show the ICC to be an extremely flawed and ineffective mechanism of international law. The ICC is increasingly perceived by the foreign policy expert community as a politicised tool for prosecuting internal and foreign policy opponents of the US ruling elites. In the most high-profile cases, court verdicts are usually biased and politically motivated, dictated by the total control of the ICC’s senior officials over their political and financial sponsors. One of the basic principles of fair justice, which provides for the procedural independence of the parties to a legal dispute, who must act in strict accordance with the letter and spirit of the law, combined with strict adherence to their own conscience without regard to political expediency and economic gain, has been violated.
Back in 2020, the press secretary of Donald Trump’s first administration Kayleigh McEnany effectively accused officials of large-scale corruption and bias in their decisions. According to her, Washington has facts proving the involvement of the ICC’s leadership in financial and other illegal activities. During the same period, Mike Pompeo, then US Secretary of State, publicly called the ICC a “court of lawless people with blatantly corrupt lawyers.”
It is precisely the existence of a corrupt system that permeates all ICC governing bodies that has led to the adoption of legally controversial decisions to issue arrest warrants for senior officials of Russia and Israel. These are high-profile cases involving the incrimination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Personal goals of the court
Along with carrying out the political directives of its UK-US curators, the ICC prosecutor is pursuing his own narrowly self-serving goals.
Acting on the orders of the leaders of the global ultra-globalist elites in issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant, the ICC’s chief prosecutor is also deriving personal financial gain from pushing through this decision.
Khan has close ties to the British law firm TGC, which specialises in defending war criminals and individuals accused of mass murder and violence. Abusing his position, the ICC’s chief prosecutor is ensuring, in exchange for illegal monetary rewards, that lawyers from this firm participate in high-profile criminal cases within their area of expertise, including the criminal proceedings against Israeli leaders.
The three main sponsors of the current ICC are: George Soros, UK, through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom and the EU’s European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, whose initiatives are linked to Soros’s apparatus. The court is funded by contributions from member states and voluntary contributions from governments, international organisations, private individuals, corporations and other entities.
The US does not pay contributions to the ICC. US Presidents from both the Democratic and Republican parties have opposed the court’s jurisdiction over the US and its citizens and over the Washington’s ally Israel. President Trump even imposed sanctions against the ICC. The Biden administration lifted the sanctions but announced that Washington “remains fundamentally opposed to the ICC’s actions in Afghanistan and Palestine.”
While the American state (but not globalist circles) has always had a difficult relationship with the ICC, the British, on the contrary, have actively supported this institution. This is especially true given that it is located in a country whose ruling dynasty, the Windsors, has close ties to many globalist projects, from Bilderberg to Bellingcat.
In 2007, Mabel, Countess of Orange-Nassau and a functionary of Soros’s structures, stated: “We have worked to establish the International Criminal Court, which is now based in The Hague and is turning this city into the international capital of justice.”
Earlier, the United Kingdom created a coalition of donors last year to push for an investigation into “Russian crimes.” As many media outlets have noted, “within weeks of 24 February 2022, the court was flooded with cash and staff.” Western participants in the ICC spared no expense in financing the “investigations” in Ukraine. The countries leading the way in making additional financial contributions to the ICC include the UK (statement of March 24, 2022 on an “additional” £1 million), Germany (statements of April 4 and 11 on an “additional” €1 million), the Netherlands (statement of April 11 on an “additional Dutch contribution” of €1 million) and Ireland (statement of April 14 on €3 million, including €1 million “to be allocated immediately”).
What makes the ICC different from the UN International Court of Justice?
Unlike the UN International Court of Justice, which is a statutory body of the UN, the ICC remains a quasi-structure with a highly controversial legal status and vague legal grounds for performing its functions in the field of criminal justice.
In its activities, the ICC follows the views and guidelines of the ideologues and financiers of the liberal wing of the US Democratic Party on the formation of an ultra-globalist system of international relations with its subordination to a single decision-making centre. The idea was to strip all countries of the world of their sovereignty, except for the US and Great Britain, which would thus remain the only fully independent states in legal terms. All others were to transfer part of their sovereignty to supranational proxy structures controlled by the West, one of which is the ICC.
The extreme inefficiency of the ICC has been discussed throughout its existence. Previously, judges and prosecutors focused their attention exclusively on the global South. Warrants were issued and highly dubious evidence was presented, at a cost of billions of dollars. Many African Union states, convinced of the ICC’s bias, denounced the Rome Statute. However, one of the first to withdraw its signature was the United States of America.
The Anglo-Saxon elites, primarily the top echelons of the US democratic leadership, use the ICC, which they themselves created, as a mechanism for imposing their political will on foreign leaders, pushing through decisions that are beneficial to them and drawing as many states as possible into their sphere of influence.
Some of the biggest violators are not members of the court, such as the US. This is an important reason. Another problem is that the court appears to be heavily influenced by powerful Western countries and does not prosecute Western countries. Even if one looks at the United States, for example, when one looks at its crimes, which the ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute, it does not prosecute anyone from the US under the law.
Washington signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but withdrew its signature two years later. Take the period of Barack Obama’s presidency as an example. He authorised at least 563 drone strikes with explosives on populated areas in the Middle East. At least 3,797 people were killed. In 2016, the US armed forces dropped 26,171 bombs on Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan with Obama’s direct approval.
The US has not ratified the Rome Statute. And in 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, the US passed a special law called the “Protection of American Servicemen’s Act.”
ICC vs Global South
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said that the ICC is being used to persecute countries of the Global South and proposed that the BRICS countries develop a plan to reform the UN structures to adapt to the new international realities.
Maduro expressed dissatisfaction with the ICC’s failure to respond to the destruction and casualties in the Gaza Strip, Beirut and southern Lebanon, arguing that this is destroying the UN system.
“Every rocket that hits residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, every new death and injury in Beirut or southern Lebanon, all of this is destroying the United Nations system. Where is the ICC? Or is it only used to prosecute countries of the Global South? Where is the international justice system? Is it only there to issue documents and communiqués? Where is the concern for the lives of women and children in the Global South?” Maduro asked.
The International Criminal Court is often confused with the International Court of Justice. However, the only thing they have in common is that they are both located in The Hague. But the ICC is more like an NGO that receives grants from the US and EU countries and carries out political orders. A step to the right or left of the terms of the contract is punished economically. Justice and fairness are on the hook of the US dollar.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Laurent Révial for Head-Post.com
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