Commission spokesperson Anouar El Anouni told reporters the EU remains a "staunch supporter" of the existing international criminal justice system, responding to a video Rubio posted on X alongside a companion op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
Rubio's central claim was striking: that the court and its allies are fighting the United States not with weapons but with "statutes, treaties and the power of so-called international law". The Commission said any threats directed at ICC judges, their families, or those cooperating with the court cross a line that cannot be tolerated.
Rubio frames the court as a sovereignty threat
Rubio's broadside goes further than rhetoric. He argues the court represents an "unacceptable threat" to US sovereignty by claiming authority to prosecute, and potentially imprison, American soldiers and officials carrying out US policy abroad. His stated plan calls for a whole-of-government campaign to "systematically prevent" the court from acting against American personnel or otherwise infringing on US sovereignty — an effort that could include pressuring allied governments to reject the court's jurisdiction over US citizens, alongside additional sanctions and travel bans targeting ICC officials.
The ICC itself declined to respond to Rubio's comments. But the confrontation lands atop already-strained relations: Washington has sanctioned several ICC figures, including chief prosecutor Karim Khan, over the court's Israel-related investigations, which culminated in a 2024 arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A court built to fill gaps national systems won't
Established in 2002, the ICC prosecutes individuals — not states — for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. It operates independently of the United Nations from its seat in The Hague and counts 125 member states, including Poland, which ratified the founding Rome Statute in 2001. Notably absent from that list: the United States, Russia, China, India, Israel and Turkey.
Its reach nonetheless extends beyond its membership. Official immunity offers no shield, not even for a sitting head of state, and citizens of non-member countries can still be prosecuted if their alleged crimes occurred on the territory of a member state. Under the principle of complementarity, the court steps in only when national authorities are unable or unwilling to prosecute themselves — it is designed as a backstop, not a substitute for domestic justice systems.
The tribunal's case history illustrates both its reach and its limits. Its first conviction came in 2012, when former Congolese rebel commander Thomas Lubanga Dyilo received 14 years for conscripting child soldiers. Seven years later, one of his lieutenants, Bosco Ntaganda — known as "the Terminator" — drew the court's longest single sentence yet, 30 years, for war crimes and crimes against humanity that included civilian massacres. Because the ICC cannot try anyone in absentia, though, many suspects remain free, with arrest warrants functioning more as tools of diplomatic pressure and geopolitical isolation than guarantees of trial.
Two recent warrants have proven especially consequential: one issued in 2023 against Russian President Vladimir Putin and children's rights official Maria Lvova-Belova over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children, and another in 2024 against Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes in Gaza.
A rift with deep roots
Washington's friction with the court long predates the current episode. Trump responded to the Netanyahu warrant by signing a February 2025 executive order sanctioning ICC prosecutors and judges, a list later expanded to include judges tied to the Putin warrant who were also handling cases touching US interests.
That order continued a pattern stretching back over two decades. Weeks after the Rome Statute took effect in 2002, President George W. Bush signed what became known as "The Hague Invasion Act", barring US agencies from cooperating with the court and authorizing the president to use military force, if necessary, to free Americans held by it — a response to fears the court might target US personnel following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The sovereignty argument resurfaced in 2020, when Trump, in his first term, declared a national emergency after ICC judges approved an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan reaching back to 2003 — an inquiry that would have implicated the Taliban, Afghan forces and American troops and CIA operatives alike. His administration sanctioned then-chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, drawing condemnation from the UN, the EU and ICC member states. President Joe Biden later reversed those sanctions, though the State Department stressed at the time that US opposition to any prosecution of Americans by the court remained firm.
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Source: PAP