You as an individual are not sovereign, and when you come to the land over which the US is sovereign, you are subject to US law.
And if an american, whom ICC have found guilty on crimes, visits a country which upholds ICC rulings they should be arrested, no?
Nobody talked about kidnapping people in the US or doing anything similar. In contrast, the US is in a habit on (among others)
1. kidnapping
2. bombing
3. otherwise assassinating
4. sanctioning
5. demanding extradition (the only actual "legal" part)
foreign citizens that they do not like. We can also say that no other, non american citizen has actually agreed to these practices either, nor to US authority to be the world serif. So these arguments more like read like monopoly of global violence/authority than "sovereignty".
All zero of them...because no Americans have been found guilty by the ICC of any crimes under its jurisdiction.
When has this ever happened? You might be referring to Maduro's extradition, but that was due to him being charged with smuggling mass amounts of cocaine into the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Nicol%C3%A1s_Ma...
You can't be serious.
Now they just kill them, also without a trial, judge or jury.
"American forces have conducted at least 71 strikes and killed 239 people the U.S. alleges are “narco-terrorists” since Sept. 2, 2025."
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/6132578-pentagon-drug-car...
Limiting things to this year.
when has it ever not?
> Maduro
(Not an american citizen btw)
> extradition
...
And the ICC never tried to diminish their sovereignty. Juridsiction at the icc works the same way as it does with states.
If you commit a crime on the territory of a sovereign state, that state gets to punish you. If you are a citizen of a soverign state then that state gets to punish you.
That is how it works in countries, and that is how it works at the ICC . ICC is no different from any country. The crime has to happen on the territory of a member state or be comitted by a national of a member state (im ignoring the referral from UNSC part as that is obscure)
One big issue is that uninvolved member states are agreeing to enforce ICC warrants up front. For example members states have refused to arrest Putin despite having a theoretical legal obligation to do so.
> That is how it works in countries, and that is how it works at the ICC . ICC is no different from any country.
The ICC is not a country, has no territory itself and has no independent enforcement mechanisms.
> The crime has to happen on the territory of a member state or be comitted by a national of a member state (im ignoring the referral from UNSC part as that is obscure)
The ICC has issued warrants for individuals for alleged crimes committed in at least two states that reject ICC jurisdiction, those states being Afghanistan and Israel.
Extradition treaties are common among soverign states. This is no different.
> For example members states have refused to arrest Putin despite having a theoretical legal obligation to do so.
Sometimes you have to bow to realism. Nobody is arresting the head of state of a nuclear armed power. That is a death wish.
Also while the idea of throwing aside soverign immunity for international crimes has quite a bit of precedent, especially for multinational tribunals, its not exactly as on firm ground as the rest of this.
> The ICC has issued warrants for individuals for alleged crimes committed in at least two states that reject ICC jurisdiction, those states being Afghanistan and Israel.
The jurisdictional theory for the Israeli nationals is that the crime took place in palestine which is a member state. If a trial took place im sure they would try and argue that palestine is not really a state, not competent to join the rome statute, or failing that, its territorial extent does not include gaza. It would be up to a judge to rule on that
Afghanistan joined signed the treaty. They have not done the proper procedure to withdraw.
So what's the point of issuing arrest warrants to heads of nuclear armed powers like Russia/Israel then if they wouldn't get arrested?
> If a trial took place im sure they would try and argue that palestine is not really a state, not competent to join the rome statute, or failing that, its territorial extent does not include gaza.
If you go by the UN it's a non-member observer state. If you go by the de facto government of Gaza they(Hamas) clearly never signed the Rome statute.
> It would be up to a judge to rule on that
Well the real question is what judge even has the authority to rule on something like that, most sovereign states will give their own domestic courts authority above any external/foreign courts.
> Afghanistan joined signed the treaty.
The de jure government may have, but not the de facto government. The Palestine jurisdictional situation is even more confusing since they were never recognized by the UN or Israel as a full state.
> They have not done the proper procedure to withdraw.
They withdrew in practice since the ICC has no independent enforcement capability. Not that it means much anyways since even member states will regularly ignore what they signed.
It's a very strange situation where a courts rulings can be almost completely detached from the de facto jurisdiction on the ground. This whole strategy of asserting jurisdiction by the ICC without having any real enforcement capability makes it look like the ICC is making decisions that are totally detached from reality and undermines their own credibility.
Well they won't be heads of state forever. The Israeli guy might even be out of power at the end of the month. And it does restrict their travel - fairly significantly. They of course didn't just issue warrants for heads of state, although the same analysis probably applies to the other accused.
Ultimately i think it was an ideological stand - The ICC prosecutor wanted to say nobody is above the law, even if practically there are limits.
At the same time, i do kind of agree, it undermines the ICC when it puts itself in a position where it knows it cant really win, and makes it seem in some ways like it is making a political statement rather than pursuing justice.
> If you go by the UN it's a non-member observer state. If you go by the de facto government of Gaza they(Hamas) clearly never signed the Rome statute.
Well yeah, that is why its a contentious question. People who recognize the state of Palestine generally view Gaza as part of it, despite the fact that the (official) state of palestine only controlled the area for a very short time long ago. Not to mention Palestine lacking some of the traditional attributes associated with states. It would be up to the judges of the ICC to determine what the ICC thinks. I think there was already a preliminary ruling, but if the Israeli accused surrendered themselves, i'm sure that would have to be relitigated.
> The de jure government [of afghanistan] may have, but not the de facto government
well, de jure & de facto at the time. Governments change, but treaty obligations stay. I think the taliban considers itself the successor state. They could have withdrawn at any point (with 1 year notice) if they felt like it. they still havent.
> They withdrew in practice since the ICC has no independent enforcement capability
The main point of withdrawing is rescinding the ICC's permission to use the states soverign ability to prosecute crimes as a basis of jurisdiction. Like yeah, there is also the cooperating in apregending fugitives bit as well, but that was always mostly on the honor system.
>It's a very strange situation where a courts rulings can be almost completely detached from the de facto jurisdiction on the ground. This whole strategy of asserting jurisdiction by the ICC without having any real enforcement capability makes it look like the ICC is making decisions that are totally detached from reality and undermines their own credibility.
I'll grant you its strange in the Palestine case, where the state of palestine does not have de facto juridsiction in gaza, but that is kind of exceptional.
In most cases the situation is more that the accused has either fled or otherwise not present in the territory, which is pretty normal for courts. Like with ukraine, i'm sure ukraine would have no problem prosecuting putin if he presented himself to ukraine. The issue is he is at large outside of the territory. That seems pretty common thing to happen in normal courts.
People give most of the attention to the weird cases, but i think the less famous icc cases tend to be a lot more normal.
In many ways, the ICC is best viewed as an extradition pact with its own court.
Yeah, although his replacement would be highly unlikely to hand him over to the ICC either.
> They of course didn't just issue warrants for heads of state, although the same analysis probably applies to the other accused.
They did also issue warrants for some dead Hamas terrorists I guess.
> Ultimately i think it was an ideological stand - The ICC prosecutor wanted to say nobody is above the law, even if practically there are limits.
Could be, could also be he needed a distraction from his own misconduct investigation[0] or a bit of both. From what I've seen he rushed a very weak case but it's hard to say exactly why, could be for political reasons. Ultimately it probably just makes the ICC look weak since the warrants would be highly unlikely to be executed.
> Governments change, but treaty obligations stay.
When governments change treaty obligations tend to mostly matter to the degree they are enforce in practice.
> They could have withdrawn at any point (with 1 year notice) if they felt like it. they still havent.
Well...apparently they can't because the Taliban is not UN recognized.[1]
> The main point of withdrawing is rescinding the ICC's permission to use the states soverign ability to prosecute crimes as a basis of jurisdiction. Like yeah, there is also the cooperating in apregending fugitives bit as well, but that was always mostly on the honor system.
I mean, the apprehending fugitives part is kind of important, since that's the enforcement mechanism. Clearly the honor system doesn't seem to be working all that well.
> In most cases the situation is more that the accused has either fled or otherwise not present in the territory, which is pretty normal for courts.
I guess that has happened a bit in Africa, with how dysfunctional the courts there can be I can see cases where something like the ICC would make sense. On the other hand most of the middle east never became member states so it's rather useless there.
> Like with ukraine, i'm sure ukraine would have no problem prosecuting putin if he presented himself to ukraine. The issue is he is at large outside of the territory.
Well they would probably do that themselves rather than hand him over to the ICC. From my understanding ICC is generally only supposed to step in if local courts fail to act.
> In many ways, the ICC is best viewed as an extradition pact with its own court.
Which I guess is the main problem, the enforcement mechanism is kind of terrible, paired with the ICC seemingly deliberately trying pretty hard to stretch their jurisdiction makes them look like they are just playing political games a lot of the time.
The court probably shouldn't be making threats of arrest it can't carry through on. Similar to how Trump was making threats against Iran that he clearly wasn't willing to carry out made him look weak when they called his bluff.
[0] https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/07/1168025
[1] https://www.ejiltalk.org/unrecognized-governments-and-the-ic...
True, they could ignore the ICC, but they shouldn't go around sanctioning and punishing and threatening its judges.
Point being, I don't really think that "the US considers" carries a whole lot of weight these days.
How fun.
Hence, if anyone commits a crime in another country, they fall under the jurisdiction of that country. So while the US doesn't have to recognize the ICC, listen to it, or follow its verdicts, other countries are free to do so.
But now the US is threatening the judges of the ICC, which is hypocritical to say the least. It's more of a mafia thing, really. Not surprising, given Trump's background.