As Trump squeezes the International Criminal Court, more countries are leaving

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — As the United States ratchets up the pressure on the International Criminal Court, sanctioning two more high-ranking staff members in recent weeks, a small but growing number of the global tribunal’s member states have announced they will quit the institution. The recent departure of Venezuela and Chad brings the number of countries to pull out of the court in the past year to five, joining Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The surge in withdrawals comes as the ICC faces hostility from Washington and a leadership crisis after ousting its own chief prosecutor.

“Five countries so far have announced plans to withdraw from the Rome Statute, and we welcome more announcements in the future,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told The Associated Press. The Rome Statute established the ICC in 2002 as the court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s most heinous atrocities: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.

Based in The Hague, it takes on cases when nations are unable or unwilling to prosecute crimes on their own territory. “The ICC regrets any decision to depart from the collective effort to end impunity for the most serious international crimes,” the court’s spokesperson Oriane Maillet told the AP. America is piling on the pressure In July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the U.S.

was launching a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.” Rubio said he will pressure the court’s 125 member states to withdraw from the institution, sanction organizations that work with the court and ban staff from traveling to the United States. Trump’s administration already has sanctioned a dozen ICC staff in retaliation for warrants the court has issued for top Israeli officials over the war in Gaza and investigations into U.S.

The Central African country of Chad specifically cited the United States in its decision to withdraw. Its Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul said in a statement that in a phone call with a U.S. official on July 23, “the American side expressed its concerns regarding the functioning of this institution and requested that Chad reconsider” its membership.

Four days later, Chad said it would leave the ICC. Iva Vukušić, a researcher at Utrecht Univer… ramping up pressure on the ICC has resulted in several countries announcing their withdrawal, citing U.S.