The USA and International Justice: A Relationship Defined by Convenience

By Aman Abdullah Shahid -

The United States has, for much of the past century, cultivated an image as the world’s preeminent defender of human rights, advocate for international justice and guardian of the rule of law. From its pivotal role in devising the post-World War II multilateral order - including founding the United Nations and shaping the Geneva Conventions - to its frequent references to these achievements in diplomatic rhetoric, the U.S. has positioned itself not merely as a participant, but as a moral standard-bearer on the global stage. Yet a more nuanced analysis reveals a pronounced ambivalence at the core of the American relationship with the very institutions of international law it helped to establish. Nowhere is this ambivalence more evident than in its complex and often contradictory relationships with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

A History of Selectivity and Exception

Although institutional ties bind the United States to the ICJ - as a function of its United Nations membership - the U.S. approach to the Court's authority has been fundamentally transactional. Early American enthusiasm for the ICJ cast it as the centrepiece of peaceful dispute resolution in a new, rules-based international system. However, this rhetorical support was exposed as conditional in the aftermath of the 1986 Nicaragua v. United States case, which found that the U.S., by supporting Contra rebels and mining Nicaraguan harbours, had flagrantly breached both international humanitarian law and domestic mandates such as the Boland Amendment. Instead of honouring the Court’s ruling, the United States rejected its jurisdiction, withdrew its optional clause recognition, and refused reparations. This episode underscores a foundational tension: the U.S. commitment to international adjudication endures only insofar as such judgments validate, rather than restrict, its exercise of power or align with its interests.

The U.S. relationship with the ICC, the world’s first permanent tribunal tasked with prosecuting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, is marked by even starker antagonism. After initially signing the Rome Statute in 2000 - suggesting at least a tentative openness to international criminal accountability - the U.S. quickly reversed course under the Bush administration. In 2002, it “unsigned” the Statute, which was followed by a vocal campaign warning against the potential vulnerability of U.S. military and government personnel to politically motivated prosecutions. Congress codified this scepticism in the American Service-Members' Protection Act ("Hague Invasion Act"), authorising extraordinary measures, including the threat of military intervention, to secure the release of U.S. citizens from ICC custody. Such legislative hostility to the Court demonstrates an entrenched anxiety in Washington about surrendering even a fraction of sovereign discretion to external authorities.

Pragmatism and Principle: The Duality of American Engagement

Despite rhetorical and legislative resistance, the United States has not hesitated to appeal to international courts when such avenues serve its broader strategic objectives. This duality is evident in several high-profile cases: Washington has brought disputes against Iran before the ICJ, actively supported ICC investigations into atrocities committed by African warlords, and championed the prosecution of leaders such as Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir for egregious human rights abuses. In such instances, international law and its judicial mechanisms have been instrumentalised to legitimise a host of U.S. foreign policy actions, ranging from economic sanctions to military interventions - signalising a selective embrace of legal norms contingent upon their geopolitical utility.

However, the same institutions are promptly derided or delegitimized whenever they risk constraining U.S. actors or challenging allied states. The United States’ pattern of invoking international justice as both shield and sword - of leveraging legal processes for advantage while denying their applicability when inconvenient - calls into question the very universality of the norms it has professed to uphold.

Recent Case Studies: Double Standards in Practice

The contradictions inherent in American engagement with international courts have been thrown into sharp relief by recent proceedings concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and senior leaders of Hamas, citing substantial evidence gathered from diverse sources, including UN reports, non-governmental organizations, and forensic analyses, of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict in Gaza. The issuing of these warrants - strengthened by months of methodical investigation- represented an unprecedented attempt to hold perpetrators of mass violations to account, regardless of their political stature, and signalled a determination by the international tribunal to exercise its mandate without deference to global power asymmetries.

Concurrently, South Africa brought proceedings before the ICJ accusing Israel of violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide through its conduct in Gaza. While the ICJ has yet to rule on the substance of the genocide allegation, it took the significant step of prescribing interim measures, ordering Israel to take tangible steps to prevent acts that could be seen as genocidal and to allow unfettered humanitarian access to civilians. These provisional orders, alongside the ICC’s proceedings, have come to symbolize the growing willingness of international courts to scrutinize the conduct of even the most influential states and their allies.

Reinforcing the centrality of these cases to the international legal order, several member states including; Spain, Colombia, Mexico, and members of the Arab League have intervened in the ICJ case under Article 63, demonstrating a robust commitment to the rule of law and the ICJ’s authority. Their interventions underscore a strong collective belief in the necessity of a rules-based multilateral order & a strong commitment to the abeyance of international law and as guarantors to the capacity of the ICJ as the highest judicial organ of the United Nations system.

Allied Responses and Normative Divides

While the U.S. response to these developments was immediate and predictably incendiary, condemning the ICC's actions as “outrageous,” “politicised,” and a violation of Israel’s right of self-defence - other Western democracies reacted with more restraint and, in some cases, affirmations of legal duty. President Biden unequivocally denounced the ICC’s decision as “a disgrace.” Meanwhile, Congressional leaders introduced legislative proposals aimed at sanctioning ICC judges and investigators - a punitive approach recalling the Trump administration’s use of executive orders to target Court officials investigating potential crimes involving U.S. service members in Afghanistan. These actions manifest a broader trend whereby Washington regards international legal scrutiny as intolerable when directed at itself or its strategic partners.

By contrast, major European democracies have demonstrated a willingness, albeit often reluctant, to respect the authority and procedural integrity of international courts. Countries such as Belgium, Ireland, Slovenia, Lithuania, Spain, and the Netherlands have articulated varying degrees of readiness to comply with the ICC’s arrest warrants. Even states with profound diplomatic, strategic, and economic ties to Israel, including France, Germany, and Italy have affirmed that their obligations as signatories to the Rome Statute and as members of the international community are binding, not discretionary. Poland, a central pillar of the NATO alliance and a close U.S. partner, has openly stated that it would observe the Court’s requirements should the need arise. This contrast highlights a core divergence in the international system: for most liberal democracies, adherence to international law constitutes a matter of constitutional and legal compulsion - not merely diplomatic convenience or rhetorical aspiration.

The Cost of Inconsistency: Erosion of International Legal Order

The United States’ oscillation between legalism and exceptionalism exposes critical vulnerabilities in the architecture of international justice. The willingness to support international courts when expedient, and to undermine or ignore them when they threaten national interests or the impunity of allies, fundamentally weakens the legitimacy of these institutions. In the process, key global norms - including the prohibition of atrocity crimes and the principle of universal accountability are undermined, not only in substance but also in perception, diminishing their power to deter future abuses or provide redress to victims.

Moreover, the implications of American inconsistency reach beyond the immediate context of legal proceedings. At a time when the international community faces a revived authoritarian challenge, increasing armed conflict, and widespread violations of humanitarian law, the need for impartial, credible and enforceable standards has never been greater. An international order in which the most powerful actors reserve for themselves a right of exemption threatens to hollow out the very edifice of global justice painstakingly constructed over decades - an edifice that the U.S. itself was instrumental in founding.

Conclusion: A Crossroads for U.S. Credibility and International Law

The challenge now facing the United States is whether it will move beyond its habitual role as a fair-weather friend to international legal norms - a supporter when convenient, a critic or saboteur when threatened or will instead embrace the principle of equal accountability, even when doing so entails costs to itself or its partners. This is not merely a matter of diplomatic posture, but of existential consequence for the integrity of international law. The ideals of justice, accountability, and universal human rights upon which the modern order rests cannot long survive a world where great powers are above the law. As divides between word and deed widen, the burden of proof lies with Washington: will the United States reaffirm the universality of the rules it helped to forge, or will it continue down a path that renders those rules little more than instruments of convenience and self-interest?