A country that never joined the International Criminal Court is now threatening to dismantle it, for the simple reason that the court might one day examine crimes committed by its officials.

"Sovereign states over globalism."

— Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Wall Street Journal op-ed, July 2026

The United States is launching a diplomatic campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court. This is remarkable for one fundamental reason: the United States is not a member of the ICC. It never ratified the Rome Statute that created the tribunal. It has consistently refused to submit to the court's jurisdiction over its own citizens and military personnel.

And yet Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Tuesday, announced that the administration would wage an international campaign to destroy the institution. His stated rationale: the court represents a threat to American sovereignty and an affront to the Constitution.

Translation: the U.S. government wants other nations to surrender their legal mechanisms for holding powerful people accountable, while insisting those same mechanisms never apply to Washington.

The op-ed was clear about what the campaign would entail. Rubio called for travel bans and visa revocations against ICC personnel. He urged allied nations to withdraw from the Rome Statute. He declared that the United States would lead a coalition of "sovereign states" to resist what he characterized as "rule by a self-appointed priesthood of international law."

This is not theoretical posturing. The administration has already demonstrated its willingness to punish the court. Last year, the Trump administration sanctioned nine ICC personnel, including judges and the chief prosecutor themselves, after the court moved to investigate alleged war crimes by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and by Israel in Gaza. The sanctions froze the assets of ICC officials in the U.S. financial system and barred them from entering American territory.

The UN responded to Rubio's announcement by calling the ICC a "critical cog in the international justice system." UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the court was "supported by a vast number of Member States" and that international law was "under threat and under attack." The European Union was blunter, calling the U.S. threats "unacceptable."

In other words: the rest of the world is looking at this and recognizing it for what it is. A non-member is trying to dissolve a body it disagrees with, using the same bullying tactics that have defined Trump's entire approach to international relations.

To understand why Rubio is attacking the ICC, you need to look at what the court actually does. The ICC is a court of last resort. It only has authority to pursue investigations when a country is unwilling or unable to prosecute its own perpetrators. It prosecutes individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.

In practice, this means it pursues people in countries where the legal system has collapsed or is being manipulated by those in power. It has convicted Congolese warlords, Sudanese officials, Ivorian politicians, and a Ugandan rebel leader. It has investigated Ukrainian forces for alleged torture. It has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And it has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The last point is presumably the catalyst. Trump declared a "national emergency" last year specifically to sanction ICC prosecutors for investigating Netanyahu's conduct in Gaza. The administration's fear that its own officials might one day face similar scrutiny is almost certainly at the root of Rubio's campaign. The court has never indicted an American, but the prospect of a sitting U.S. official being served with an ICC warrant while traveling abroad is a genuine threat under the Rome Statute. Member states are required to cooperate with ICC arrest requests.

Rubio gave away this anxiety in his op-ed, where he referred to "so-called international law" multiple times, making clear that the administration's position is not that the ICC should be reformed or balanced, but that there is no international law the United States is obliged to follow, period.

The administration wants a world where Washington faces no external legal constraints, while maintaining the rhetorical cover of defending "sovereignty."

Rubio's op-ed deployed a familiar playbook of xenophobic and nationalist language. He described the ICC as being "backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernmental organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S." He cast the court as an existential threat to American independence.

What he did not mention is that the Rome Statute was drafted with significant U.S. input. The United States participated in the negotiations. Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 2000, though the Senate never ratified it. George W. Bush formally "unsigned" it in 2002, arguing that the court could be used to politically target American military personnel. That concern was real enough at the time.

What is not real is Rubio's claim that the ICC "overrides" national courts or the Constitution. The court's statute of complementarity means it explicitly cannot intervene when a country is genuinely investigating and prosecuting its own crimes. The ICC fills the gap when countries fail to do so. It does not replace domestic justice systems. It steps in when those systems break down.

The irony should be obvious: if there were a tribunal that actually could override national courts and impose globalism on sovereign states, the United States would have to be a party to it first. You cannot dismantle a structure you never agreed to join.

There is another layer of hypocrisy worth examining. The Trump administration's approach to the ICC is part of a broader pattern of dismantling any institution that might constrain U.S. power while strengthening the tools available to punish enemies. The administration has blocked press access to Pentagon briefings during wartime. It has subpoenaed journalists from the New York Times for reporting on security flaws in the Qatari-donated Air Force One. It has deployed federal immigration agents without body cameras, resulting in the killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine within a single week.

In a parallel development, top ICE officials told The Daily Beast that Trump's demand for mass arrests is directly behind the wave of deadly shootings, with one insider saying operations should be shut down because agents are "pushed to the breaking point." Five ICE officials confirmed to The Intercept that internal orders were handed down Monday to stop vehicle stops, the tactic that led to both killings. One official called the killings "serious" and said, "This shit isn't normal."

None of this would theoretically fall under ICC jurisdiction since the U.S. is not a party to the Rome Statute. But that's precisely the loophole the administration is trying to protect. Rubio's campaign to dismantle the court is not about defending American citizens from overreach by unelected judges. It's about ensuring that no court, anywhere, ever has the authority to examine American conduct.

The question is not whether the ICC is perfect. It is a flawed institution with limited reach and uneven enforcement. The question is whether the country most likely to benefit from a world without international accountability is the same one doing the most talking about sovereignty.

Rubio's answer was already clear. Sovereignty, as he defines it, means the United States can do whatever it wants, and everyone else gets to live with the consequences.