In November 2024, when the International Criminal Court upheld arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, Washington did not applaud global accountability. The US did not hail the arrival of the law. They punished the judges. They punished the court. They labeled justice itself the enemy. And then, in June of 2025, the ICC upheld these arrest warrants, and the US reinforced its reaction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was adamant that America would “never stand for ICC abuses of power.” The ICC thundered back, saying that the US actions constitute “a flagrant attack on judicial independence,” which translates into what the world already knows: that the US fears justice.
This was just the beginning, part of a larger pattern.
When the ICC started investigating war crimes in 2020 in the US, the country sanctioned officials in the ICC. It did this without arguing with them or debating the issue. They sanctioned the officials as if they were criminals, and the process of investigating war crimes was terrorism.
Flashback
The International Court of Justice decided in 1986 that the United States had violated international law in its clandestine war against Nicaragua. The US disregarded the decision. The US did not argue against the decision on grounds of international law. The US abandoned compulsory jurisdiction in general. As the former President of the ICJ, Mohammed Bedjaoui, remarked concerning this situation, “No state has done more harm to the Court’s authority than the U.S.” Such a statement came not from an activist, but from international law itself, speaking the truth.
This is the American doctrine: Accountability is mandatory for others, but optional for Washington
But whereas the ICC disgusts it, and it dismisses rulings from the ICJ, the US welcomes the United Nations—but only when it becomes an instrument for enforcing its will. The US marched to the Security Council to impose sanctions against its foes. The United States uses the UN as a tool to isolate, penalize, and strangle those it considers its adversaries. The country relies on the very same UN it branded “ineffective” to resist scrutiny and cloak its politics with legitimacy.
But when the UN focuses its attention on the allies of the US, especially Israel, the US shifts from the defender of law to the executor of the law. Forty-nine vetoes to protect Israel from being held accountable at the United Nations Security Council. Forty-nine diplomatic strangulations. Forty-nine instances where international unity was trampled beneath the American veto stamp. In September of 2025, when the world called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, when civilian casualties were high enough to shock veteran diplomats, the United States vetoed a motion that requested an end to the violence.
This is not neutrality. This is complicity
Indeed, as former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, “When major countries disregard or damage international institutions, they begin to unravel the moral fiber of the world.” No country has pulled on this fiber more than the US. Washington speaks the language of law but does the politics of exemption. It holds Russia guilty of disregarding international awards, finds China guilty of disavowing arbitral awards, and argues with the Global South over “universal law,” but labels international judges enemies if they target America or the nearest and dearest to America. It holds up the sword of justice, but not the mirror of justice.
This hypocrisy undermines everything
It erodes trust around the world. It makes a mockery of fragile institutions. It tells dictators around the world that the rules of international law are a line to be crossed – a convenience. The victims of war crimes will find that their pain is a negotiable commodity. The world will see that true justice and international justice are mere playthings of world powers.
When US diplomats smirk that the ICC has no business with them, they speak like all the authoritarian regimes that Washington says it deplores. When it sanctions judges, Washington can commingle with the worst of the worst. As Amnesty International so aptly put it years back, “The United States cannot lead on human rights while simultaneously attacking the institutions that are meant to protect them.” The US does not want to lead in justice. They want to manage justice. That’s the way they mean to do it.
This is not merely a diplomatic inconsistency. This is a moral collapse
International law exists in a thin shield of protection for the powerless. This shield stands between the civilian and extinction. To allow the degradation of the rule of law, therefore, stands to obliterate the shield that keeps the powerless from the powerful and gives the reckless free rein. This, of course, America can lead by example — after all, it can pick and choose when the rules apply.
The question now lingers, like a puff of smoke, in the air: Does the United States, in fact, support justice, or simply itself?
The world is no longer deceived. Not after Nicaragua. Not after Afghanistan. Not after Gaza. Not after the ICC’s assault. The illusion of moral superiority is beginning to dissolve. The empire of legal exceptionalism is laid bare. A nation that fears its law is not a nation that fears its law because it is unjust. It fears its law because it may be judged by it. And that day, despite the vetoes and the threats, the sanctions are coming.
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