International justice in 2025: threatened with death, yet unstoppable
OPINION. U.S. sanctions against its Prosecutor, contempt for its authority: attacks against the International Criminal Court are relentless. But international crimes are now also being judged by national courts, a sign that justice continues to be delivered, writes international lawyer Alain Werner.
The year 2025 has seen heads of state and leading political figures openly display their determination to dismantle international criminal justice. Even more troubling, several European officials, longstanding guarantors of this system of justice, have remained silent or have themselves called for circumventing its fundamental principles.
Yet, in this toxic political climate, the International Criminal Court (ICC) continues to stand firm. In March, judges and prosecutors made possible the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte, former president of the Philippines, and his transfer to detention in The Hague on charges of mass killings against his own population. Then, in October, the conviction and subsequent sentencing to 20 years of Ali Kushayb, former leader of the Janjaweed militia, marked a historic first for international crimes committed in Sudan, a country ravaged by one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the century, yet facing total indifference by the international community.
The attacks targeting the ICC reached a level of violence this year never seen since its creation in 2002. Barely a few weeks after his inauguration, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on 6 February authorizing sanctions against the Prosecutor, who has already been under Russian sanctions since 2023. Washington then extended these measures in June to four judges, and in August to two additional judges and the two Deputy Prosecutors. For having devoted their professional careers to upholding international law, these judges and prosecutors can now barely engage in online commerce and have become effectively barred from banking services across much of the world. In September, the press even reported on discussions in Washington aimed at sanctioning the ICC as a whole, a measure that would paralyze all of its operations. The Court’s employees then received, as a precaution, their salaries for the remainder of the year.
Beyond sanctions, some States sought to undermine the very authority of the Court. In February, Italy refused to transfer to the Court a Libyan national arrested in Turin and sought for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Libya. In April, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a four-day official visit, even though Hungary was legally obliged to arrest him pursuant to the ICC warrant issued in 2024.
The “holy alliance” of enemies of international justice could, of course, count once again on strong support from Russia. In September, three Sahelian military juntas under Russian influence—Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger—announced their withdrawal from the ICC, describing it as a “neocolonial instrument in the hands of imperialism.” They will join Hungary in 2026 among the States leaving the ICC.
And in November, Moscow also included in its peace proposal transmitted to U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff a clause providing for a general and absolute amnesty for all international crimes committed in Ukraine—a provision contrary to international law.
In such a context, one might have expected a vigorous response from the ICC’s historical allies. None came. The European Union, whose 27 member states are all still members of the Court for the time being, has yet to activate its “blocking statute,” which was designed to protect its citizens and European companies from sanctions imposed by third countries and would help mitigate the effects on their nationals working at the ICC.
In Germany as in France, several senior officials have stated that Prime Minister Netanyahu could travel to their countries without risk of arrest. In Switzerland, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ignazio Cassis, declared that Vladimir Putin—also subject to an ICC arrest warrant—would not be apprehended if he came to negotiate peace.
Fortunately, international justice no longer resembles what it was in the 1990s or 2000s, when international criminal tribunals seemed the only recourse for victims of mass crimes. The center of gravity has since shifted: most convictions for international crimes are now handed down by national courts. And in several countries, attempts at political pressure or sabotage often find less resonance than on the international stage.
This year again, it was therefore national courts that carried the torch for accountability. Thus, for example:
– in March, a Finnish court convicted a former member of a Wagner Group sub-unit of war crimes committed in eastern Ukraine in 2014;
– in April, a Colorado court convicted a former Gambian soldier from the Yahya Jammeh regime for torture;
– in November, in Sweden, the conviction of an ISIS fighter for genocide—the first in the world linked to the forcible transfer of children from one group to another—was upheld.
Only the future will tell whether the United States, Israel, Russia, and others succeed in fully or partially obstructing the operations of the ICC, and whether ICC member States truly support a strong and independent international criminal justice system. But one fact remains certain: no one can stem the momentum of actions brought by victims before national courts.
This movement has now become the true flagship of international criminal justice. And it is unstoppable.
The article first appeared in French on Le Temps on the 15th of December 2025
Image: Rodrigo Roa Duterte appearing for the first time before the ICC judges on 14 March 2025. ICC-CPI
