Trump/Rubio Strategy: End the ICC's Insidious Assault on US Constitution

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By Ward Clark

The United States is unique among nations in the promise that our government will protect certain inalienable natural rights against all threats. Some (but not all) of those rights are described and guaranteed by the First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to our Constitution. Washington and state/local governments haven't always had a perfect record in guaranteeing and protecting these rights, but by and large, they do a lot better than pretty much all of the rest of the world.

The so-called International Criminal Court (ICC), however, has no such scruples. That's why the United States has never submitted to the ICC, and that's why the Trump administration is now working to dismantle the ICC. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal ran a column from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, outlining precisely why and how this is being done.

Most of us would struggle to imagine a world in which U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America.

But that is what the International Criminal Court now claims the power to do.

This is precisely why the ICC has to go. Nobody from any foreign nation has any right to try Americans under, as Secretary Rubio describes, laws we have never agreed to. And Americans, military or civilian, will not be afforded their inalienable rights by this international court. Only in the American legal system will the rights of the accused be guaranteed. 

Neither of our major political parties have ascribed to this. Secretary Rubio continues:

Americans never agreed to any of this. Both of our major political parties opposed the prospect of handing a distant global court the power to prosecute and jail our own citizens. President Clinton refused to submit the Rome Statute (the ICC’s founding charter) to the Senate for ratification due to his “concerns about significant flaws in the Treaty.” Two years later, a bipartisan Senate supermajority passed the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act, authorizing the president “to use all means necessary”—including military force—to prevent the ICC from detaining or arresting Americans.

The United States has never recognized the jurisdiction of the ICC over American service members or citizens. Through Democratic and Republican administrations, the stance of the USA has remained the same; we do not recognize any jurisdiction of the ICC over American citizens. But the ICC has been pushing back, and it's time to bring the United States' considerable influence to do away with this arbitrary and authoritarian institution. No foreign judge, no foreign tribunal, no foreign institution of any kind, can be allowed to have any legal jurisdiction over American citizens.

Secretary Rubio concludes:

The Trump administration will always protect American service members from this threat. The U.S. is launching a diplomatic campaign with a simple message—sovereign states over globalism. Those who benefit from American security must not stand idly by while those who provide that security are targeted. This is only the beginning. Using all the tools at our government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common cause, we will dismantle the ICC—brick by brick, if necessary.

All we can say about this is "It's about time."

Secretary Rubio has also released an official statement on video. You can view that here.


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