David Hoile
Back in February, the respected Justice Info website published an article titled “Thinking about the death of the ICC and what comes next.” If not quite in the morgue, the International Criminal Court is definitely in the intensive care unit.
In the last year, both the United States and Russia have imposed sanctions on what Washington describes as a politically motivated “kangaroo court.” Moscow sentenced the chief prosecutor and eight ICC judges to lengthy prison terms in absentia. Washington’s sanctions mean no email, no bank accounts, no credit cards, no online shopping, eBay, PayPal or Ubers, and no U.S. travel visas for several judges and their families.
No more Alexa, either. The court has had to change its operating software and might not be able to pay its employees. It is preparing for the worst.
The court has lost its prosecutor, Karim Khan, who stepped aside in May following allegations of sexual misconduct. The ICC has also lost five State Parties across three continents in 2025: Hungary, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Venezuela. Burundi, the Philippines and Malaysia have already left. And key European ICC members have demonstrated a marked reluctance to execute ICC arrest warrants. Other State Parties are voting with their wallet.
ICC member states are at least 74 million euros ($87 million) in default of their contributions, of which 50 million euros ($58.5 million) relates to the 2025 budget. A total of 37 States Parties have outstanding contributions of more than one year, and 16 of those are now ineligible, or simply unwilling, to participate in ICC affairs.
It has all gone spectacularly wrong. Critics claim that the ICC has squandered an enormous amount of goodwill, political capital and billions of dollars while destroying its own credibility, legitimacy and respect.
Based in The Hague, along with the International Court of Justice, the ICC opened its doors in 2002, pledging to pursue the most serious of international crimes without fear or favor.
The ICC started to go wrong very early on, running headlong into accusations of institutional racism, judicial gerrymandering and political selectivity, simply making things up as it went along.
Fatal flaws were there from the start: The court is a Frankenstein monster of conflicting legal systems cobbled together by the non-governmental organizations that gave birth to it and continue to meddle in its affairs. It has simply not lived up to the claims made by the court’s proponents and by the court itself.
Most notably, the ICC will never be the world court. Its signatories represent a little more than one-quarter of the global population. The United States, Russia, China and India are just some of the many countries that have remained outside of its jurisdiction. Neither is the ICC the independent court it claims to be. Its own statute grants special “prosecutorial” rights of referral and deferral to the U.N. Security Council — by default, to its five permanent members (three of which are not even ICC members). Political interference in the legal process was thus built in from its inception.
The veteran international human-rights lawyer and prosecutor Reed Brody has noted that “political calculations and double standards … have plagued … the ICC.” The court is also inextricably politically and economically tied to the European Union, which provides up to 70% of its funding. And we all know that “he who pays the piper calls the tune.”
The ICC should be seen as a project of the European Union, either by insemination or adoption, serving as an instrument of European foreign policy, especially in Africa.
The ICC claims that it has strengthened peace. Instead, the court has delayed, destabilized and destroyed peace processes in Africa, causing increased conflict and human suffering.
The ICC claims to be fighting impunity, yet it has afforded de facto immunity and impunity to European member states and several serial abusers of human rights that happen to be allies of its European funders.
The court has performed very badly at a snail’s pace. Promising “swift justice,” it has consumed more than 2 billion euros, resulting in 13 questionable convictions in the 23 years of its existence in trials lasting up to 10 years. It projects itself as a “victim’s court” but has been roundly criticized for its ambivalence toward victim communities. Professor Louise Chappell, a legal scholar and campaigner, has also stated that “there are questions being raised by the gender justice community around the court’s legitimacy.”
Far from being exemplary, its prosecutors, judges and administrators have proved to be manifestly unfit for purpose. ICC judges — some of whom have never been lawyers, let alone judges — are the result of NGO-vetting and grubbily corrupt FIFA-esque vote-trading among member states.
Its trials have been described by legal bloggers as “slapstick comedy.” In 2024, in a moment of clarity, even the currently suspended Khan was candid enough to admit that “[a]round the world, many people are not buying what we are selling.”
All of the above — and this summary merely skims the surface when it comes to criticisms of the court — pose what should be an obvious question: What right does this failed, institutionally corrupt, professionally inept and procedurally flawed body have to judge anyone?
David Hoile is the author of “Justice Denied: The Reality of the International Criminal Court.”
