A Court of Convenience 

The ICC’s claim to be “international” is, at best, aspirational. Of the 193 United Nations member states, only 123 participate. The world’s three most populous nations—India, China, and the United States—do not. Overall, more than half of the global population lives in countries that have not joined the ICC and remain untouched, and untouchable, by its rulings. These absences aren’t arbitrary. They reflect a shared skepticism that the ICC is not about enforcing justice but about prosecuting politically expedient cases—when it’s convenient.

Even within its limited jurisdiction, the ICC’s actions are rife with inconsistencies. Consider its decision to treat “Palestine” as a participating state. Palestine does not meet the court’s own definition of a state. Yet it is afforded standing at the ICC while actual states like Taiwan or Kosovo are denied entry. This isn’t impartial justice; it’s convenience-driven politics, shaped by the pressures of geopolitical agendas.

Nowhere is the hollowness of the ICC clearer than in its selective prosecutions of Israel. Israel—a small democratic state navigating an intractable conflict and continued threats of annihilation—is investigated, while known, notorious, actual human rights abusers like China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and countless others escape scrutiny. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, hasn’t faced a single ICC charge. It turns a blind eye to such atrocities. Why? Because Syria, like Israel, is not a member. But Israel is singled out among the seventy-odd non-member states that the ICC will issue rulings about. Israel is a scapegoat to maintain the illusion of relevance. When choosing its targets, the ICC’s motivations are not about justice but about which cases offer the least resistance and the greatest political theater. In other words, it prosecutes when—and where—it’s convenient.

Why does the ICC persist, and why do some countries fund and try to buttress its legitimacy? For Europe’s political elites the ICC is a tool for virtue-signaling. Supporting “international law,” however flawed and hallow, allows them to project moral authority while conveniently ignoring their relative wealth, geopolitical power, colonial histories, and complicity in modern global injustices. In short, they can feel virtuous while maintaining positions of privilege within the global order.

For less powerful nations like South Africa, the ICC offers different conveniences. It was South Africa that launched the ICC’s investigation into Israel, not because it stands as a beacon of law, order, and justice, but because the move served its domestic political agenda. Facing profound internal challenges—including corruption, economic crises, and rampant violent crime (the highest on the continent)—South Africa’s leadership uses the ICC as a distraction, deflecting public attention at home and abroad from its own colossal failures by assuming the role of an international moral arbiter.

History shows us what happens when courts are weaponized for political ends. Stalin’s show trials in the Soviet “People’s Court” and the Nazi’s Volksgerichtshof (also the “People’s Court”) weren’t about justice but about convenience for those in power. The ICC’s selective enforcement and politically motivated prosecutions share an unsettling resemblance to these historical travesties. Like those other shambolic institutions, it does have a great name, i.e., one that spuriously suggests the institution has moral seriousness and integrity it lacks.

Meanwhile, every day, the world’s most vulnerable populations remain unprotected. Instead, the court focuses on cases that align with its political agenda, further eroding its credibility. The ICC’s lofty claims amount to little more than empty promises and cruel self-aggrandizement—abandonment when addressing their plight proves inconvenient.

At its core, the ICC is not a court of international justice—it’s a court of convenience, picking its battles based on political tastes and preferences rather than moral imperatives. For those who truly care about justice, the court’s recent judgments against Netanyahu and Galant stand as a sobering reminder of how far we remain from achieving it. Its actions may wear a thin veneer of morality, but beneath lies the stark reality of a system driven by power, politics, and prejudices—not principles.