Rubio labels international law a tool of elites, attacks ICC

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered an aggressive and unrepentant challenge to international law in a speech on Friday, warning that the US would never submit to the "sterile vision of radical judges or soulless global bureaucrats." His address singled out the International Criminal Court, as President Donald Trump and his administration have done many times over the course of his first and second terms. Rubio dismissed international law as an instrument that elites -- whom he didn't name -- use to advance their own interests. "If they're foolish enough to try to enforce their paper decrees on Americans, our answer will probably be the same as the Roman general Pompey when he said to those who were trying to invoke their city's charters against his legions, he said, 'Stop quoting laws to men with swords,'"

Rubio said. The sentiment represents a stark turn away from the rules-based order that the US helped create after World War II, as well as the values that the country has championed -- but often failed to live up to -- as a defender of international law. It is also a remarkable reversal from Rubio's own history as a staunch defender of international law during 14 years in the Senate. He co-sponsored a resolution encouraging other countries to turn to the International Criminal Court to investigate Russian war crimes after the invasion of Ukraine. Rubio delivered the remarks to the Federalist Society at the National Lawyers Convention in Washington, introduced by his daughter Daniella, a third-year law student at the University of Virginia.

The speech builds on one he gave last month in Athens, where he used the backdrop of the Parthenon to defend the Trump administration's focus on the "unapologetic" pursuit of power. Rubio's aggressive speech deployed the kind of sweeping rhetoric about American values and history that are more commonly seen on the campaign trail and will further fuel speculation that he may be considering a run for president in 2028. Trump has frequently said that either Rubio or Vice President JD Vance would be the best Republican candidate to succeed him. Rubio himself has dismissed and dodged questions about his political future.

The convention has historically served as a platform for Republican politicians who harbor aspirations for higher office. George H.W. Bush spoke there in 1987, Rudy Giuliani addressed the group in November 2007, and Ted Cruz did so in 2013. Rubio also addressed the group in 2011 as a senator, a few years before beginning his first presidential campaign in 2015. Rubio in recent weeks has defended US overtures to Russia, saying Trump is doing everything he can to spur talks to end the conflict in Ukraine. Rubio on Friday derided the ICC as a "fake court" and "an unelected world tribunal, which claims to supersede the laws and constitutions of sovereign states, even those who never signed up for it."

While the ICC has never charged or indicted an American citizen, and successive administrations have rejected its jurisdiction over Americans, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime Trump ally, based on his war in Gaza. Asked in a question and answer session with law students about Iran and the goals in the war that the US launched together with Israel on Feb. 28, Rubio said that victory would be preventing the Islamic Republic from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. He contrasted Iran with North Korea, saying that while North Korean leader Kim Jong Un isn't interested in invading Japan or China, Iran's regime is expansionist and wants to export its revolution and supporting its proxy groups across the Middle East.

"This is an extraordinary historic danger, and one that cannot be ignored," Rubio said. The Trump administration has repeatedly been accused of disregarding international law. Examples that Rubio cited in his speech include the move to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, targeting alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, and the enforcement of US immigration laws. Trump has also threatened to take the Danish territory of Greenland and said he wants to make Canada the 51st state. The US has imposed sanctions on ICC officials, calling it an unelected body of global elites trying to force nations to surrender their sovereignty.

"The history of our nation and our people brims. It brims with a hunger to expand, to grow, to explore, to conquer, to stake a claim to new frontiers," Rubio said. "We, Americans, we are not passive and inward-looking people."