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I appreciate the detailed writeup. I will freely concede the following points: your analysis is probably correct, and the ICC's verdict is probably tendentious and politically motivated.
I am, I'm afraid, arguing vibes. The USA's pitch to the world over last half-century of so has been something along the lines of:
"We're here to help. Previously, empires were allowed to bully and exploit smaller countries, but we're different. We intend to put in place a world order that will allow (and require) countries to cooperate and trade with each other on equal terms. We intend to police the world if necessary, but not to rule it."
Given that, for America to exempt itself and its vassals from the international court with jurisdiction over
and to explicitly threaten employees of the court is a very bad look. It makes people start to wonder why America feels that laws around genocide and war crimes are "inapplicable or inappropriate" when applied to America. It brings back memories of the invasion of Iraq. It also brings back memories of things like the unequal extradition treaty between America and the UK. It's as though Bill Gates declared that he was too important to be bound by laws against murder, or at the very least demanded the right to determine whether those laws were being correctly applied to him and his friends on a case-by-case basis.
Precisely as immoral as it is to force people to be governed by laws they didn't sign.
In short, does America sincerely believe that it is too important and powerful to answer to anyone else? America's behaviour suggests that the answer is yes, and any intimations otherwise is 'who, whom' propaganda. The more America resorts to economic and diplomatic coercion, the less interested everyone else is in helping to maintain the system and America's place in it.
Having said all of that, I think that international law is an extremely flawed concept. The idea that one government can enter into an agreement that is considered binding on subsequent governments decades later seems ludicrous and anti-democratic. As with most law, it's ultimately a fudge for applying coercive power in a manner that is mostly accepted and results in minimal fuss. I wouldn't bear America any ill will for saying, "our voters are pro-Israel and we feel the need to act accordingly, regardless of international law" provided that they extended the same courtesy to everybody else.
Understood. And in return, I hate vibe-based policy, especially on the international stage. Vibe-diplomacy is how we go from R2P to slave markets in Libya and a massive discreditation of nuclear non-proliferation concessions by dictators. Vibe-diplomacy is how we get ideological powers like the US running amuck in Iraq because of their vibes of the moment, or revaunchist powers trying to rebuild dead empires by invading their neighbors, and a general lack of consistency and predictability that ruins people in mass when vibes shift. Passion can do many great and terrible things, and as a rule I hate when passionate people act with words backed by nuclear-capable missiles.
Down with vibe-policy. Death to vibe-plomacy.
The International Court does not have jurisdiction over those crimes. The International Court has jurisdiction over the countries that agree it has jurisdiction over those crimes, if those countries are not pursuing it themselves. The jurisdiction is both conditional to a party's membership/consent, and the ICC does not serve as an alternative / appeal for national court cases on the same line of effort.
Your vibes are putting the cart before the horse. The International Criminal Court doesn't simply exist, and then all other countries acknowledge its supremacy on the topic. Other countries exist, and agree with eachother to defer to the ICC for their own reasons. The reasons vary, but most have had a cynical component, include foreign aid bribery.
I would agree it's a bad look, as I'm sure you'd agree those people would be ignorant of what laws the US is bound by, and those people wondering likely weren't reading the ICC's own reports.
There are many reasons that the ICC released reports on its decisions not to pursue charges against the US in the Iraq contexts, and unless you think they're lying in their conclusions due to threats none of them exactly end with 'we conclude the Americans have a policy of -X-, but we lack the ability to go after them' rather than 'we have no evidence to believe a systemic policy warranting further investigation was pursued.' While I'm sure some would take the dodge of 'well, the US pressured them to change their position,' this would itself be an argument that the ICC is corrupt and vulnerable to political influence from non-members, let alone what would be expected were the US to be a part of it.
Fortunately, much of the international order doesn't force people to be governed by laws they didn't sign, and instead gives them means to retract their signatures if their opinions change. Others may not like it when they renenge on agreements, but that is a sovereign right (and consequence).
There's two different dynamics to this paragraph that prompt two different response.
Part one, on the first two sentences, is who else are the Americans- or anyone else- supposed to answer to if not their own governments, and their governments to their own constituents?
The international system is, above all, anarchic. There is no higher authority to appeal to, and no authority in a democratic system more legitimate than the electorate and its representatives through their enshrined legal standard either. This is not some Americanism either- this is the same deal with why the UK Parliament is Sovereign, why EU legal Supremacy is routinely checked by German or other national Supreme Courts ruling something is against the National Constitution, and countless other variations and permutations. International law's legitimacy does not derive from being international law, it derives from the nations that back it, and they in turn derive their legitimacy from whatever mertis their popular support.
A decision not to join the ICC isn't a matter of power, it's a matter of sovereign deference. There are many countries- weak, stronger, moderate- that do not. If you want to get down to it, only about half of the world's population is in a country that abides by the ICC, which is to say that about half of the world's population doesn't abide by the IPC.
The second is a challenge to the assumption that the ICC is part of the American international system, as opposed to an attempt to co-opt it and develop of a coercive tool of diplomacy independent of the Americans.
There's a reason that the ICC is viewed in much of the world as more of a European than American project, and that's long been both a part of its attraction and its weakness. The US wasn't the champion of the ICC as an international system, the Europeans were, and expanding it was a matter of policy for the last two decades. One of the reasons the map shows most of Africa, for example, was that the Europeans made it a notable part of the Cotonou Agreement, which is to say a condition for systemic aid flow. The ICC is primarily funded by the Europeans, the location primacy is obvious, and there's long been a tension as to whether it functions as a tool for post-colonial influence in Africa by its historical focus on Africa. While there are structural arguments as to why it's perfectly appropriate for the ICC to spend most of it's time prosecuting poorer states and not the rich and powerful ones, this is what the ICC is without the US bankroll or direction, not because of it.
There's plenty to be said about about the ICC's place in the international order- and an argument to be made that the mid-2000s tensions between the ICC and the US/UK was the effects of an institutionalist power play between the Franco-German block of the EU trying to punish the UK for breaking ranks and joining the US war in Iraq while trying to secure geopolitical leverage of the US- but the key point is this.
If someone told you the ICC was a key part of the American international order, it wasn't the Americans.
They do extend you the same courtesy as everyone else. You are bound by the same international laws as you agreed to or maintain alignment with.
If you wish to be the bound by the same international laws as the United States, and no more, you have to agree to the same international laws as the United States has signed, and no more.
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