How Trump and Europe’s Cowardice Strangle International Law.
There are stories that look like nothing. News that stares at us like a statue in the market, expressionless, lifeless. And then there are those stories that scream, that rise against indifference, that become fanfares of shame. The International Criminal Court is one such story.
A court created to stand up to the powerful, to hold tyrants, war criminals, and genocidal murderers accountable. A court that has now become a victim itself. Not of tyrants, but of cowardice, calculation, and cold indifference. And while the news of US sanctions against Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan struggles through the headlines, while Europe entangles itself in ever more absurd petty conflicts - the highest court for international justice stands on the brink.
A continent that sees itself as a defender of human rights has nothing to say when one of its most important partners, the United States, strangles the court. The chief prosecutor’s bank accounts are frozen, his email access blocked, US staff members of the court are barred from returning home, NGOs refuse any cooperation for fear of reprisals. Microsoft has barred Khan from its email service, his ProtonMail account is a desperate retreat into digital exile. American court employees risk arrest if they visit their families. A tribunal meant to stand for the greatest crimes in human history is being strangled by sanctions.
But it goes further. Various arrest warrants issued for alleged war crimes have become symbols of powerlessness. Trump has labeled the court as “illegitimate” and “dangerous,” ordering the US government to block contact. Banks in the United Kingdom froze Khan’s accounts, NGOs refused any cooperation, fearing US sanctions. A paralysis of justice.
It is investigative journalists from different continents who are now considering filing a lawsuit to allow the International Criminal Court to resume its work. Journalists fighting for the law more than the governments that claim to defend it.
What a pathetic spectacle. A continent that busies itself with trivialities while the foundations of justice erode. A court once meant for the victims of the greatest crimes in human history is now defeated by frozen bank accounts and blocked emails.
And the established media? They entangle themselves in their own vanity, becoming mouthpieces of power, in love with their own illusory significance, while the International Criminal Court is destroyed piece by piece.
The impotence of justice. That is the true story. And Europe? Europe looks away. Once again, right-wing populism has won. But go on, chase every little pebble, raise every insignificant little lost soul to the grand stage of populist spectacle. Yet what is truly lost is democracy - and with it, international law.
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