Just as France U-turned on its pledge to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in accordance with an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant, a close ally of incoming US president Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, said the quiet part out loud – that the West doesn’t consider itself to be accountable to international law.
Trump ally Lindsey Graham: the ICC doesn’t apply to the West
Trump ally Lindsey Graham, a gobby US senator, has led the way in raging against the ICC after it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu over his role in the Gaza genocide. But when the ICC issued a warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin just last year, Graham happily praised the court. So what changed?
Well, as Graham said quite bluntly on 27 November (from occupied Jerusalem):
The Rome Statute doesn’t apply to Israel, or the United States, or France, or Germany, or Great Britain, because it wasn’t conceived to come after us.
The Rome Statute, as the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) explains, “is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague” back in 2002. The IIEA adds that, according to the treaty, “the ICC has jurisdiction over four categories of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community; genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression”.
So there you have it. The ICC wasn’t meant to hold all criminals to account, just the ones the West doesn’t like.
“The Rome Statute doesn’t apply to Israel, or the United States, or France, or Germany, or Great Britain, because it wasn’t conceived of to come after us.”
— Lindsey Graham admits Int’l Law is a tool of Western supremacy that does not apply to the West pic.twitter.com/VWJ1xz3v5o
— Tiberius (@ecomarxi) November 28, 2024
France backs down under pressure
As Al Jazeera reports:
After initially stating that it would adhere to the ICC statutes, Paris has since suggested that Netanyahu enjoys immunity from the arrest warrants as Israel is “not a party to the ICC”.
Middle East Eye (MEE) says France:
alleged that Netanyahu is covered by immunity as a sitting head of government because Israel is not a member of the ICC.
Legal experts, however, insist France is wrong. And as MEE explains:
judges have consistently rejected those arguments as contrary to the provisions of the Rome Statute.
Apart from being wrong, France’s decision is also highly hypocritical. Because like the US, it previously welcomed the ICC’s warrant for Vladimir Putin (also a head of state of a country not within the ICC) with open arms. Regarding Putin, France had said that “no one… regardless of their status, should escape justice”.
Additionally, there have been suggestions that France backtracked in exchange for its inclusion in Israel’s Lebanon ceasefire deal.
Graham: The US will ‘sanction you and crush your economy’ if you follow international law
Lindsey Graham previously stressed that no amount of civilian deaths in Gaza would make him oppose Israel’s genocide there. And after the ICC issued its arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Graham threatened countries not to act on it:
I’m working with [Sen.] Tom Cotton to have legislation passed as soon as we can to sanction any country that aids and abets the arrest of any politician in Israel… So, to any ally — Canada, Britain, Germany, France — if you try to help the ICC, we’re gonna sanction you.
He added that, if allies decided to follow international law, “we should crush your economy”.
As MSNBC highlights:
The United States historically has refused to recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, holding concerns that the court could bring charges against American troops abroad.
And that’s likely the source of Graham’s tantrum, because he admitted:
we’re next. Why can’t they go after Trump or any other American president under this theory?
Given the USA’s long history of committing and supporting crimes against humanity around the world, he’s not wrong. The ICC absolutely should seek accountability for the crimes of past and current US politicians. Whether it has the guts to do so, however, is a completely different matter.
