"The International Criminal Court is back as a central issue of debate in American foreign policy. But the debate this time not only influences American interests but also the interests of its key allies especially, Israel. In March, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that Washington would put restrictions on any ICC staff member who investigated U.S. or allied personnel. This month, the Department of State revoked the U.S. visa of Fatou Bensouda, the ICC's chief prosecutor, after she declared her intention to conduct an investigation of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
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Both the U.S. and Israel have been concerned with the politicization of the ICC. At the time of the vote for the Rome Statute, the head of the Israeli delegation, Judge Eli Nathan, explained how politicization of the ICC's founding document caused Israel, a proponent of the court, to vote against it. Nathan, who was a Holocaust survivor, spoke about leading Jewish legal minds who, after the Holocaust, called for bringing war criminals to justice. He saw the ICC emanating from Jewish ethics, and concluded: 'This was...our idea.'
But the Rome Statue went beyond the most heinous crimes like genocide, aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and gave the ICC jurisdiction on political issues like settlements. Plenty of third world countries backed this change, but it was inconsistent with what the original drafters had in mind.
In 1998, during discussions over the text of the Rome Statute, the issue raised was settlements, but the debate between states over the ICC illustrated that any political issue might be converted into a legal weapon through the mechanism of the ICC. The U.S. has been aware of this problem, which explains why, like Israel, it could not back what started as a noble cause but later became a seriously flawed idea."