The US has never meaningfully backed the ICC, and has repudiated it for the overwhelming majority of its existence. Clinton signed the Rome Statute in 2000, on his way out the door; the US never ratified it, and we withdrew our signature in 2002.
Still, US was instrumental in a couple of cases. Supplying evidence against and apprehending suspects in case of ex Yugoslavian culprits and one or two African dictators, but I could be wrong...
The 2002 withdrawal was clearly to sidestep prosecution for the lies that led to Iraq's invasion.
US was okay with ICC until those human right high horse stuff could apply to US...
All I'm saying is that the US is not a signatory to the ICC and does not owe the ICC anything. The ICC sounds like an important supranational body, but is in fact simply a treaty agreed to by a minority of the world's population.
I guess so I was saying, is that US might have been a signatory. In spirit, US has often advocated for applying rules of international humanitarian law where appropriate.
Treaties like NATO, NAFTA, or various "coalitions of the willing" were never backed by a majority of the worlds population. (Maybe an agreement between China and India, might count?).
I think the point isn't that US never believed in multilateralism - it did - but that it feels rules and laws should only apply to others.
I think that's probably a fair criticism of the US! The only thing that rankles me is the idea that there "is" a global criminal court that any country has any moral obligation to comply with. There is not. The US is disrupting the operations of an ICC case? Ok, so what? It's not a real court.
