Washington Sanctions the ICC: The Law Applies to Everyone, Delivery Restrictions Apply

On Friday the United States sanctioned the International Criminal Court in The Hague as an institution, no longer just individual judges and prosecutors. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would ban transactions with the court and cut off its resources. The stated reasons are the Afghanistan investigation, which could touch US personnel, and the arrest warrants for Israeli officials. Rubio skipped the diplomatic soft focus: either the court ends its threats, or Washington ends the court.

The announcement came a few hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Oslo honours one of the court's jurists in the morning, Washington tries to close its bank account in the afternoon. Recognition and asset freezes have rarely shared a calendar so cosily.

International law is universal. Washington would simply like to decide where the universe ends.

The US never joined the Rome Statute, which is its right. It gets more creative when the same government lectures others on the rule of law while threatening companies that keep a court's servers running. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called it a serious blow to international criminal justice; the court called it an assault on the legal order. Europe now has an awkward choice: almost every EU state is a party to the court, and each must decide whether its signature on the statute outweighs its access to the dollar.