WASHINGTON: Efforts toisolatetheInternational Criminal Court diplomatically are aimed at eroding confidence in the international legal order as President Donald Trump’s administration has pressured countries to isolate the institution, the current and former presidents of the ICC’s governing body said.
‘Efforts to isolate the Court diplomatically, whether by encouraging states parties to withdraw from the Rome Statute or urging non-state parties to join measures intended to weaken it, are aimed at eroding not only one institution, but confidence in the international legal order itself,’ they said in a joint op-ed published on Thursday.
The op-ed appeared on the Just Security journal’s website. Authors included Paivi Kaukoranta, who is the president of the ICC’s governing body, the Assembly of States Parties, and seven of its former presidents.Defending the ICC ‘is about preserving the international legal order as we have built it, as humanity’s strongest safeguard against a descent into lawlessness and impunity’, the op-ed said, adding the choice was ‘between a world based on the rule of law and one where might decides what is right’.
The op-ed comes as the Trump administration has sanctioned ICC judges and officials, including the court’s president, and is pressing member countries to quit, a campaign that has prompted lawsuits and raised concerns among some US allies.
Trump sanctions ICC officials The Trump administration ratcheted up its campaign against the Haguebased court last month by sanctioning its president, Tomoko Akane, and a trial lawyer.
Washington says it will also step up efforts to get other countries to quit the institution.-Reuters