The world’s top criminal court located in The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC), is facing unprecedented existential crises from multiple fronts. Amid threats from U.S. administration to dismantle the court, the Chief Prosecutor of the court, Karim Khan, a British lawyer selected for the position in 2021, was removed from office last week, in connection with allegations of sexual abuse.
The allegations emerged in 2024, after Mr. Khan sought arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023. The prosecutor also initiated investigations against Russian President Vladimir Putin for allegations of war crimes committed in Ukraine.
President Donald Trump has been opposing the court from the start, and during his first term in office, revoked the visa of then ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and later sanctioned her and a senior member of her staff over the court’s Afghanistan investigation. President Joe Biden later lifted those sanctions, but when Mr. Trump returned to the White House for a second term, he signed an Executive Order authorising asset freezes and visa restrictions on anyone aiding ICC efforts to investigate or prosecute U.S. nationals and the citizens. On the restrictions list from the U.S. are nine ICC personnel including prosecutors and judges of the ICC reviewing the Afghanistan and Gaza investigations. The U.S. visa restrictions and asset freezes list includes the UN Special Rapporteur for Gaza, Francesca Albanese, and Palestinian human rights organizations.
Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State, pledged last week to “dismantle” the court as he described it as a threat to U.S. sovereignty. Mr. Rubio described the court as being run by “hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.”, while the reality is that most of the governments of Europe, that too NATO members, are among the ICC state parties.
The crises facing the courts, in addition to the threats to dismantle the court and court staff facing sanctions and travel ban, has been now accentuated by the removal of the prosecutor due to allegations of sexual assault from an ICC staff member. The Assembly of State Parties (ASP) of the court voted (82 in favour out of total 125 state parties) on July 24, removing Mr. Khan at a special session at New York.
Rome Statute and jurisdiction
The ICC was established by the Rome Statute, which entered into force in 2002. Many global powers participated in the formative discussions but chose not to become members of the ICC, including the U.S., China, Russia, and India. Most of these nations view that subjecting their citizens to ICC jurisdiction will impact their state sovereignty.
In theory, the ICC can initiate an investigation on war crimes or other offences against any state, either committed on the territory of any ICC member states, or against any other state, if authorised by the UN Security Council. The ICC has often been described as a “global court of the last resort”. It is mandated to prosecute leaders of any state or those responsible under the charges of “genocide”, “war crimes”, and “crimes against humanity”, when such state is unwilling or unable to prosecute the offenders by themselves.
Article 27 of the court’s enabling law (Rome Statute) clearly states that heads of state, ministers, military leaders, and other senior officials remain subject to the court’s jurisdiction. This provision reflects the continuing influence of the Nuremberg principles and confirms that sovereignty cannot serve as a complete shield against accountability for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or aggression.
The Rome Statute, therefore, represents a major step away from the idea of absolute sovereign protection and impunity for violations which were perpetrated. It reinforces the view that international law imposes obligations directly upon individuals and that serious crimes transcend political office or governmental authority.
The court and its staff including the judges and prosecution office have been working under constant pressure and prosecutors and judges of ICC have been facing financial sanctions, travel bans, and other repressive measures. The former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda revealed that she faced direct threats, surveillance, and pressure from Israeli intelligence, to halt her investigation into war crimes committed by Israeli forces in Palestine.
Investigations by court
The court gets jurisdiction to investigate a situation or atrocities which happened in a state in one of three ways. If the particular situation happened in the territory of a state party, or it was perpetrated by a national of a state party, then ICC can investigate the situation, provided the host state is unwilling or effectively unable to conduct a credible juridical process. The third way is through a referral of the specific situation by the UN Security Council to ICC; cases to the point are “Darfur-Sudan” and “Libya” situations. It is for the prosecution section of the court which is authorised to pursue actions to investigate once the jurisdiction is confirmed.
The court is currently investigating 17 situations that happened in different countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Palestine, the Philippines, Venezuela, Ukraine, Uganda, Darfur, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Georgia, Burundi, Bangladesh/Myanmar, and Lithuania/Belarus.
Until now, the court has issued 61 arrest warrants across multiple global situations, resulting in 22 detentions and 32 suspects remaining at large. The biggest deficiency of the court is that it has no police force on its own and relies entirely on member states to implement its decisions, arrest suspects and hand them over to court. Though the 125 countries which support the Rome Statute are obligated to execute arrest warrants issued by the court if such person/leaders enter their territory, many have failed to do so.
The prosecution division of the court has been crippled for the last two years after the allegations of sexual abuse first emerged in 2024 against Mr. Khan. A woman staff member of the court attached to his office raised accusations of “coercive and non-consensual sexual misconduct” against him in 2024.
This was the first time in the ICC’s 24-year history that member states have been asked to decide whether to remove a sitting chief prosecutor from office. The Bureau of Assembly of State Parties in June 2026 found that the prosecutor “engaged in a sexual relationship” with the complainant, which was considered to be “inappropriate” given the “power imbalance” between them. The decision was against the report of an internal investigation by OIOS (UN Office of Internal Oversight Services) in to the allegation, which was then reviewed by a three-judge panel, which concluded that the investigations failed to establish any “misconduct or breach of duty under the relevant framework”. Last week, the victim came out in the open, identified herself as one of the former ICC staffers and gave an interview to CNN and stood by the allegation of non-consensual sexual conduct against the prosecutor.
Mr. Khan has repeatedly denied all the allegations against him, which include claims that he engaged in coercive and non-consensual sexual behaviour over an extended period. His lawyers alleged that this was a conspiracy to intimidate the office of the prosecutor, after he sought arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant.
The Assembly of States Parties (ASP), the court’s governing body comprising all the 125 member states, discussed the two opposing narratives, but voted by secret ballot to remove the prosecutor.
Withering of rule of law
These are tumultuous times when even the founding principles of the United Nations Charter are being challenged by powerful nations with vested interests acting with utter disregard for other international conventions and agreements which they themselves have ratified and accepted. Both Russia and the U.S. have flagrantly violated “no use of force” principle of the UN Charter during this decade itself. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran in 2026 and the 2026 U.S. attack on Venezuela are examples.
The UN Security Council which is at the centre of rules-based order which was painstakingly built up after the Second World War remains paralysed, because of geopolitical rivalries between the bigger nations also holding veto power. International law depends on consent, reciprocity, and enforcement through collective mechanisms which is now non-existent.
Stifling methods
Major nations also try to stifle multilateral organisations and accountability mechanism such as the International Criminal Court. The U.S. has sanctioned nine ICC personnel, including judges, the prosecutor and deputy prosecutors, in connection with investigations by the court and the prosecutor for alleged war crimes committed by Israel and the United States.
The withering of multilateral institutions including the ICC and weakening the foundations of international law have profound implications for the entire world. The principles of international law are now openly flouted and the rules-based international order face serious challenges.
The pressure from the U.S. administration to dismantle the court has reached unprecedented levels with the covert aim to ensure impunity for its armed forces and personnel for their multiple incursions across many parts of the globe. Weakening of the international court means that justice might be denied to many, especially to victims from Third World nations who are often the victims of violations. The challenge of the tumultuous times that we live in is to re-affirm the value of international law and to strengthen the multilateral institutions and enhance the accountability mechanisms including the ICC.
The position of the Chief Prosecutor at the ICC is one of the most crucial of all positions at the court, even more important than that of a single judge. Now that the office has been considerably weakened for the past two years surrounding the controversy, the only way for the Assembly of State Parties of the court to override the existential crisis is to select and appoint a non-controversial, independent impartial Chief Prosecutor, who need to pursue pending investigations, if the world court is to achieve the objectives for which it was founded.
The author worked as a UN Prosecutor with UN Mission in Kosovo
