As the United States considers sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) based on potential arrest warrants for Israeli officials, some experts have questioned the court’s value, given its track record since its creation .
“(The ICC) has been around for more than two decades, (but) it has fewer than 10 successful prosecutions,” Orde Kittrie, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Sandra Day O’Connor Professor of Law at the Arizona State University. Law School, told Fox News Digital. “It cost over $2 billion. It was really ineffective.”
As of July 2022, 31 cases have been brought before the ICC, resulting in 10 convictions and four acquittals. The court issued 37 arrest warrants, and 21 people were eventually arrested while 12 people are still at large, according to the court. European Union External Action Service.
The ICC’s total annual budget for 2023 was approximately $183,500,000, an increase of approximately $34,500,000, or an increase of approximately 20% over the 2022 budget.
Member states each support a portion of the overall budget based on the size of their economy, with the largest funds coming from major European economies, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Brazil, according to the Human Rights Journal.
Japan ranked as the largest contributor in 2022 with approximately $26,850,000, while Germany and France ranked next with approximately $19,000,000 and $14,400,000, respectively.
President Biden speaks during an American Jewish Heritage Month reception in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 20, 2024. (Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Appropriations for the Court are divided into nine categories: judiciary, Office of the Prosecutor, Registry, Secretariat of the Assembly of States Parties, Premises, Secretariat of the Trust Fund for Victims, Permanent Premises Project – State loan host, Independent Oversight Mechanism. and Office of Internal Audit. The Court also notes that “the assets that the Court holds are not normally held to generate commercial income and are therefore non-cash-generating assets”, meaning that it must construct its budget from contributions alone.
Even with this large budget and its significant increase from year to year, the Court relies largely on the cooperation of its members to enable its operations. Outgoing Registrar Peter Lewis said in 2023 the court faced an unprecedented workload – even before launching the investigation into alleged crimes in the Gaza Strip – and that cooperation from state parties remained crucial for all success.
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American sanctions
This makes any sanction against the organization a potentially crippling measure: then-President Trump in 2020 authorized an asset freeze and family entry ban against ICC officials after the court opened investigations into Alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.
“The ICC prosecutor…believes the Biden administration is more interested in a warm relationship with the ICC than in protecting Israelis and Americans from its takeover,” said Anne Bayefsky, director of the ICC. Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. Human Rights Voices, told Fox News Digital.
Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)
“If President Biden does not immediately invoke the American Service Members Protection Act, end all cooperation and support for the ICC, and use his authority to sanction ICC officials for their scandalous prosecutions – in fact, their persecution – against the democratic representatives of the Jewish state… justice will have received a disastrous blow,” Bayefsky said.
The Biden administration has increased its cooperation with the ICC, providing assistance and intelligence to the Court to strengthen its action. investigation into alleged Russian war crimes during the invasion of Ukraine, although Kittrie noted that the ICC trial against Putin “didn’t make a difference” and may simply have added “some sense” of legitimacy for Putin’s prosecutor. the ICC.
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Bayefsky and others have urged the Biden administration to invoke the U.S. Military Protection Act and sanction the ICC in response to any arrest warrants for Israeli officials.
During a speech in the Rose Garden on Wednesday during a press conference with Kenyan President William RutoBiden reiterated that the United States “has made its position on the ICC clear…we do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, the manner in which it is exercised, and it’s as simple as that.” We don’t think there is any equivalence between what Israel did and Hamas did. »
This view shows the International Criminal Court building in The Hague in the Netherlands on April 30, 2024. (Selman Aksunger/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Rome Statute has 124 signatories, including most countries in Africa, Europe and South America, but it does not include some notable holdouts: the United States, China, Russia, Ukraine , Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea and Turkey, among others. .
The Biden administration reversed punishments but reinforced the position that the United States continued to “strongly disagree with the actions of the ICC regarding the situations in Afghanistan and Palestine.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights argued that sanctions have delayed critical investigations at the ICC, impacting “directly and indirectly negatively” the ICC’s work, but perhaps not as dramatically as the United States would have hoped.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are pictured in the West Bank in August 2023. (Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Instead, the group argued that the sanctions created an uneasy working relationship between the ICC and any potential collaborators, such as civil society organizations, investigators, lawyers and victims, who would fear doing so. facing similar sanctions for assisting the ICC.
The ICC, which began operations in 2002, bases its authority on signatories to the Rome Statute, which defines four core international crimes that the Court will prosecute: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of assault, all of which are “not subject to any limitation period” but limited only to crimes committed after the entry into force of the law.
President Clinton signed the statute in 2000, but he demanded that the eventual ICC address “fundamental concerns” before he or any other U.S. president would consider submitting the statute to the U.S. Senate for ratification. The Bush administration went further by withdrawing the US signature and instead adopting the US Military Protection Act.
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Also known as the “Hague Invasion Act,” this law authorizes the president to use “all necessary and appropriate means to bring about the release” of U.S. or allied citizens detained or imprisoned by the ICC.
The bill also prevents the United States from providing support to the ICC, according to Article 10. 2004: The United States is prohibited from responding to requests for cooperation, providing support to the court (including on the part of law enforcement), to assist in extradition and to use appropriate funds to assist the court, among others.
