The International Criminal Court, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio complains in a July 13 Wall Street Journal op-ed, styles itself “a standing world tribunal with near-unlimited reach, empowered to override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states — and to prosecute and arrest our citizens.”

Accepting that, he claims, “would mean the death of the U.S. as a sovereign and independent nation.”

He’d be right … if the ICC resembled his description of it. But it doesn’t.

The ICC’s jurisdiction — its “reach” — is strictly limited to crimes of specific types, and applies only when those crimes are committed on the soil of, or by citizens of, its 125 member states.

Each of those member states have, pursuant to their own “sovereignty,” ratified the Rome Statute, granting the ICC that jurisdiction.

Rubio’s problem with the ICC isn’t that it can “override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states.” It’s that when an American allegedly commits a relevant crime on the soil of an ICC member state, the ICC, rather than US courts, adjudicates the matter.

To put it a different way, Rubio’s demand of ICC member states is “global sovereignty for the US, no sovereignty for anyone else.”

The whole idea of “sovereignty,” as codified in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, is that the world’s various regimes possess “legitimate” authority over their respective turf claims. That’s why the courts in Peoria don’t try people accused of reckless driving in Pakistan, or vice versa. And if some of those regimes choose to outsource prosecution of crimes on their respective turfs or by their respective serfs to an “international” court, that’s their prerogative.

Rubio wants it both ways.

The US regime routinely prosecutes — or, in the case of recent strikes on ocean-going vessels, just murders — foreigners for alleged crimes not even committed on US soil. Sometimes it even kidnaps the alleged criminals FROM foreign soil, as with former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

But if an American soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine allegedly commits a crime in, say, Afghanistan (an ICC member state), he whines that charging, trying, and potentially convicting that American is an outrageous violation of US “sovereignty.”

The real solution to Rubio’s complaint is simple:

If the US government doesn’t want its military personnel charged with crimes, it should stop sending them abroad — or at least not send them to ICC member states — to commit crimes.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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