The Trump administration’s campaign to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court is not a principled defence of national sovereignty. It is an attempt to ensure that Israeli officials accused of war crimes remain beyond the reach of international law.

The pattern is familiar. When an independent judicial institution threatens politically protected leaders, the response is not to contest the evidence in court, but to attack the court itself, sanction its officials, intimidate investigators and portray legal accountability as illegitimate. Authoritarian and fascist regimes have repeatedly used precisely this method, weakening the judiciary while insisting that they are defending the nation.

The real issue is therefore not whether the ICC is flawless. No court is. The issue is whether international criminal law applies equally, or only to the enemies of powerful states. Washington has long supported international justice when it targets governments it opposes. It now seeks to destroy that same system when it threatens Israeli leaders.

A legal order that prosecutes the weak while granting immunity to the powerful is not justice. It is hierarchy dressed in judicial language. The attack on the ICC is ultimately an attack on the principle that no government, no military and no political leader should stand above the law.

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