The international community is bearing witness to an America at war with itself. An America who condemns China for their treatment of protestors while executing American citizens protesting immigration enforcement. An America that constructs a Latin America policy geared towards the curbing of illegal drug trafficking while pardoning a convicted drug trafficker whose guilt was laid bare by members of the president's own administration. An America that establishes a “Board of Peace” while waging war in Iran. The first victim of American contradictions has been her alliances. From frizzing with France to tensions with Turkey, from antagonizing Australia to infuriating Ireland, and from condescending Canada to gaslighting Greenland, American arrogance and hypocrisy has many victims. Yet there is a path forward. The United States can restore trust in American leadership and revitalize its soul by taking a constructive step for a better future. The United States can, and indeed must, sign and ratify the Rome Statute. 

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in Rome in July 1998, the Rome Statute created the International Criminal Court (ICC) to “investigate and, where warranted, try individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.” Based in The Hague and through the office of the prosecutor, currently led by British lawyer Karim A.A. Khan, arrest warrants have been issued for a broad host of world leaders and despots. What makes the ICC such a remarkable opportunity for revitalizing American leadership is that despite America’s lack of participation, it is a distinctly American institution. The ICC and international law cannot be divorced from American leadership following the end of World War II. There is no Karim A.A. Khan without Roberth H. Jackson, the American lawyer who served as the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials,¹³ and there is no ICC––and for that matter, no United Nations––without the United States. 

Ratifying the Rome Statute would provide a venue for virtue for American leadership. There is a temptation to balk at the ICC, arguing that America’s participation in the ICC would constrain its ability to pursue its foreign policy goals, international law is beyond redemption, and America does not need allies to enact its vision for international affairs. As strong as that temptation is, it is strategically and morally erroneous. America needs its allies, and these alliances stand to be reinvigorated by ratifying the Rome Statute. The trouble with trusting American leadership today is that it is bipolar. Every election cycle or so, America’s positions and priorities flip on their head. Ratifying the Rome Statute would anchor American foreign policy and enable engagement with its allies. Significantly, the ICC is an incredible strategic opportunity. All of South America is a party to the ICC. Much of the progress the ICC has made has been in Africa, and in a world in which the United States vies for influence against its adversaries, the ICC provides a new opportunity to influence international policy and catalyze old and new relationships. China, Russia, and America’s other autocratic adversaries have already ceded the ground of the ICC; the United States can take advantage of that. By participating in international systems of accountability, America can develop stronger relationships with its allies and distinguish itself from its adversaries. 

More important than any realpolitik argument for ratifying the Rome Statute is the moral interest the United States has in ratifying the Rome Statute. The United States was founded on the principle that human life is inherently inalienable, and infinitely valuable. The extinguishment of human life through crimes against natural law and crimes against humanity must never be trivialized, and the response to these crimes must never be tepid. If the United States only cares about international law when it criticizes its adversaries, and only pays lip service to human rights when it is in its strategic interests, it betrays not only its allies but also disfigures the soul of American democracy. An America that does not pay absolute deference to the fundamental dignity of each individual person is an America without the authority to govern itself, let alone lead the world. 

The United States has a strategic and moral obligation to sign the Rome Statute to restore trust in American leadership. The finest hours of the American project, from the construction of the US Constitution to the creation of the United Nations, have rested on the capacity of laws and institutions to build trust and protect communities. As discord grows within the United States and across the globe, the United States can rebuild trust in American leadership by ratifying the Rome Statute and holding onto a tradition that animates its very existence, the rule of law.

Acknowledgement

The Institute for Youth in Policy would like to acknowledge Donna Kim for editing this op-ed.

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