Unfortunately, there are enough courts that are very willing to slap any label on any suitably vilified candidate. Pick any president of India; you can probably find a Pakistani court would be willing to convict for "crimes against humanity". And vice versa. Or pick some Iraq-Iran pairings. Or Armenian- Azerbaijani, etc.
Allowing external courts to judge presidents is a bad idea. It is a slippery slope even for cases that seem obvious. My 2c.
We're talking about any random court, however, but the ICC.
It does not have a history of "slapping any label on any suitably vilified candidate".
Put another way: The US has a history of deciding it is allowed to start actual wars to overthrow the kind of people committing the kind of crimes that gets you targeted by the ICJ.
The US just wants its own people to not be subjected to what it has a long history of imposing on others.
This is exactly right. "Might makes right" is very true on the international stage. The ICC tried to fix that, but they have been muzzled when it comes to real might.
To the degree the ICC has precedent, it’s in being powerless over great powers.
I don’t know what the solution is. But an essentially advisory body like the ICC probably isn’t it if the goal is checking the U.S. and its allies, or China and its allies. (Maybe it’s useful for checking Western Europe? Idk.)
