📌 Tehran, IRNA – Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei has criticized Europe’s silence on US threats to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC), warning that talk of a rules-based international order would be meaningless if the law were sacrificed to “appease an aggressive ally.”
The spokesperson shared a post on X late on Saturday in reaction to the US’s new sanctions and threats against the ICC.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions on Friday hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. Rubio called on US allies, which are members of the ICC to “rein in the court,” and threatened that the US will “continue its campaign to dismantle the ICC, brick by brick” if allies do not.
“Rubio threatens to dismantle the ICC ‘brick by brick’ if US allies fail to rein it in. Remember the 1930s: international orders collapse not only through aggression, but when the use of force becomes normalized and the world remains silent,” Baqaei said in his post.
He particularly addressed Europe, saying: “Does standing by an alliance mean defending international law and the post-WWII normative and institutional framework - or standing with the US as it dismantles them? If law and justice are sacrificed to appease an aggressive ally, any talk of human rights and a rules-based international order becomes nothing more than empty rhetoric,” he noted.
Washington’s sanctions against the ICC follow its pressure on the court after it issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant over war crimes in Gaza.
📲 @Irna_en
