Sanctioning Judges

It is said that when gangsters and brigands face the justice of the land, their first instinct is to threaten the judges who pronounce their sentence. What we are witnessing on the international stage is scarcely different.

The United States, wielded like a sock puppet by its Israeli handlers, has sanctioned the International Criminal Court itself, threatening to cripple an institution for daring to investigate those Washington considers beyond reproach.

The timing is revealing. On the very day former ICC judge Navi Pillay received the Nobel Peace Prize, Washington announced its latest assault on the court. Pillay, who led a UN commission accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, has warned against political intimidation of international justice.

That America should attack a court associated with a Nobel laureate, despite the prize’s own historical subservience to Western interests and imperial designs, demonstrates how far Washington has fallen.

Nor is this the first outrage. ICC prosecutors and judges have already faced American sanctions over investigations involving the United States and Israel. Now Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatens to dismantle the court brick by brick unless it submits to Washington’s demands.

This is naked aggression and lawlessness masquerading as a defence of sovereignty. The very power that lectures the world about international law is prepared to destroy its institutions when that law threatens its interests.

The guilty conscience could scarcely be clearer. When the accused wield their power to punish the judges, they expose their contempt for justice itself.

The question is whether the international community will defend the court or allow intimidation to become the final arbiter of international law.

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