The Lawfare Project’s Statement on Illegitimate ICC Arrest Warrants Against Israeli Official

The Lawfare Project is outraged by today’s highly politicized decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. This improper and deeply flawed action undermines the integrity of international law and exposes the ICC’s troubling bias against Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.

To be clear, the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel; Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the ICC, and by arrogating to itself jurisdiction over Netanyahu and Gallant, the ICC’s warrants can properly be seen as reflecting a political decree without legal merit.

The ICC’s actions today are emblematic of a long history of bias against Israel. In 2021, the ICC claimed jurisdiction to investigate alleged crimes in areas including Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem, despite having no legal grounds to do so, as "Palestine" is not a recognized state under international law. The ICC also demonstrated bias in 2015 when it accepted "Palestine" as a state party to the Rome Statute without legal justification, a move clearly intended to target Israel. Meanwhile, the ICC has consistently ignored credible allegations of grave crimes committed by regimes such as those in Syria, Iran, North Korea, and China, focusing disproportionately on Israel instead. Most recently, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s pursuit of arrest warrants against Israeli officials was influenced by consultants with documented histories of anti-Israel bias, further undermining the Court’s claims to impartiality.

The ICC’s original mandate, before abdicating its responsibilities and turning itself into a political body, was to serve as a court of last resort, pursuing justice for the most egregious international crimes where states are unwilling or unable to act. Israel, however, has one of the most robust and transparent legal systems in the world, which thoroughly investigates allegations of wrongdoing. Even if the ICC had jurisdiction over Israel — which it does not — this reckless decision disregards the principle of complementarity enshrined in the Rome Statute and sends a dangerous message: that the Court is willing to abandon legal principles in favor of political agendas.

The ICC has become, sadly, an existential threat to the international rule of law. The U.S. Congress can and should forcefully combat the ICC's rogue actions with the passage of the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which would sanction ICC officials who investigate or prosecute the United States and its allies that do not recognize the ICC's jurisdiction or authority.

Additionally, the President can and should reimpose sanctions on the ICC, including for its efforts to investigate and prosecute U.S. officials and American servicemembers who risked their lives to liberate innocent people from oppression around the world. These efforts represent yet another clear overreach of the Court's jurisdiction and a threat to American sovereignty. President Trump imposed such sanctions during his first term, showing the world that America rejects the entrenchment of antidemocratic and extralegal forces in international bodies, including in the United Nations and the ICC.

This decision is emblematic of a broader lawfare campaign aimed at delegitimizing and demonizing Israel by weaponizing international law as a tool of political warfare. It emboldens those who exploit legal mechanisms to perpetuate Jew-hatred under the guise of pursuing justice. The ICC’s actions today not only undermine Israel’s sovereignty but also betray the very principles of fairness and impartiality that international law is meant to uphold. By equating Israel’s legitimate acts of self-defense with Hamas’s indiscriminate terrorist attacks on civilians, the ICC perpetuates a dangerous false moral equivalence, eroding the core values of justice and truth.

We call on member states of the ICC to reject this dangerous politicization of international law and to take back the reins from a Court that has violated its mandate and now abuses the rule of law to target democracies fighting to keep their citizens safe from terrorist violence. These member states should make clear that they reject the ICC’s warrants and will not act upon them, but will instead cut funding to the Court until such time as they clean house and re-establish the moral integrity of that body. The Lawfare Project will continue to challenge these injustices and to protect the rights and sovereignty of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.