The ICC and the Legacy of Nuremberg: International Justice Under Threat

Eighty years after the Nuremberg trials established individual criminal accountability for international crimes, the International Criminal Court (ICC) faces an existential threat as the United States under President Donald Trump moves to undermine the tribunal. Seznam Zprávy reported that the Hague-based court, established in 2002 to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, is fighting for survival after the U.S. president labeled the institution a “bad group of people” and urged member states to withdraw.

Crimes under international law are committed by people, not abstract entities, and provisions of international law can be enforced only by punishing individuals who committed such crimes. This famous sentence from the judgment of the International Military Tribunal turned the idea of individual criminal responsibility into reality on October 1, 1946. Seznam Zprávy noted that the Nuremberg process, conducted by victorious powers to punish the major criminals of Nazi Germany, concluded that leaders could be held personally responsible alongside states.

That foundational concept persists today through the ICC, which operates when a state fails or refuses to prosecute crimes itself. Czech legal experts and judges, including former Constitutional Court vice-president Ivana Janů at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Ivana Hrdličková at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, have contributed directly to international criminal jurisprudence over the decades.

Washington Shifts From Architect to Adversary

The United States served as the primary architect of international criminal justice for decades following World War II. Democratic president Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute at the end of his term, but the treaty was never ratified.

Heller explained to Seznam Zprávy that the U.S. always refused a court it could not control, demanding guarantees that American citizens and allied leaders would never face prosecution. This historic friction has escalated sharply during Donald Trump’s presidency, culminating in a New York speech at the United Nations General Assembly where Trump denounced the court as unmanageable and called on nations to abandon it.

Alex Whiting on the Campaign to Undermine the Hague

Alex Whiting, a Harvard professor of international law and former official in the ICC Office of the Prosecutor, described a deliberate strategy targeting the institution. “From Donald Trump’s mouth, we are witnessing a process whose goal is to truly undermine and destroy the court,” Whiting told Seznam Zprávy. He added that the tribunal will fight for survival in the coming years simply to keep the flame of international justice alive.

While 125 countries have acceded to the Rome Statute—including the Czech Republic—the court lacks its own enforcement mechanism. Seznam Zprávy pointed out that the court has issued 66 arrest warrants since its inception, securing custody of only 23 individuals while 33 remain at large and 15 convictions have been handed down. Prominent high-stakes warrants targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlight the reach of the court’s jurisdiction over non-member states where alleged crimes occurred, such as Ukraine and Palestine.