The State Department isn’t mincing words about the International Criminal Court, calling it “corrupt and worthless” while praising Venezuela’s decision to abandon the globalist tribunal that spent years investigating former dictator Nicolas Maduro with nothing to show for it.
In a blistering Saturday statement, the department welcomed interim President Delcy Rodriguez’s move to withdraw from the ICC, aligning the new Venezuelan government with American efforts to tear down the international body that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has targeted for dismantlement.
“The so-called court has been ‘investigating’ Nicolas Maduro since 2018 with no result,” the State Department said. “The ICC has instead wasted its resources on investigating and charging persons from countries that have competent, independent judicial systems and which never submitted to the jurisdiction of the court.”
The statement concluded with a direct call to action: “It is time to dismantle the ICC. The U.S. calls on all members of the ICC to withdraw from the Rome Statute.”
Venezuela’s foreign minister, Felix Plasencia Gonzalez, announced Friday that his country had informed United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of “its firm and irrevocable decision” to begin withdrawing from the court. He pointed to what he called “geographical bias,” arguing the ICC unfairly targets African and Latin American nations.
“This pattern reveals an international justice system that, far from being applied equitably, has been instrumentalized to deepen inequalities among people and disregard their right to self-determination and sovereignty,” Plasencia Gonzalez posted to X in Spanish.
The withdrawal had been in the works since December, when Venezuela’s national assembly voted to repeal the law ratifying the Rome Statute, the foundational treaty establishing the court.
Secretary Rubio recently laid out the Trump administration’s case against the ICC in a video posted to X. He explained that the court originally claimed it would operate under limited scope, only prosecuting the most serious offenses when a nation’s own courts “were unable to prosecute them on their own.”
“But the truth is, it was something far more radical and extreme: it was a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited,” Rubio said.
The ICC had been investigating alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela. Reuters reported that in 2020, the court said there was “a reasonable basis to believe civilian officials, members of the armed forces and pro-government individuals had committed crimes against humanity in Venezuela since at least 2017.”
Yet while the ICC investigated, it was American action that actually brought Maduro to justice. In January, U.S. forces conducted a precision operation to capture the Venezuelan dictator and bring him to American soil to face charges for his alleged crimes.
The State Department highlighted this contrast, noting that the ICC’s years-long investigation produced no results while the new Venezuelan government has partnered with “American-led efforts” against the court.
The United States is not among the 125 member countries of the ICC and has long been skeptical of submitting American citizens or allies to the jurisdiction of unaccountable international bodies. The Trump administration’s push to dismantle the court entirely represents an escalation of that position.
