The United States does not recognize the decisions of the International Criminal Court (ICC) unless its decisions are consistent with the policies of the United States.
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would impose sanctions on the ICC over its prosecutor's decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli officials related to the war in Gaza.
The vote was 247 to 155, with 42 Democrats joining Republicans in backing the measure. There were no Republican “nay” votes, although two voted “present”.
The measure is not expected to become law but reflects continuing, unconditional support for Israel in Congress amid international criticism over the occupying country’s genocide in Gaza.
On its part, the Al-Azhar Observatory for Combating Extremism (AOCE) believes that US, the self-proclaimed world leader of democracy and freedoms, endeavors to punish ICC officials marks a policy of double standards and hastens the demise of the rule of law. No truly adopted and operationalized human, legal, and/or civil values would ever justify such manipulation of facts, vindication of gruesome killers, and targeting beacons of law. After all, if illegality prevails, the world order would be further vulnerable to change. Self-proclaimed value-policing countries and organizations must be ashamed of themselves and hold back their phony demands and reviews of human rights conditions anywhere in the world. Human rights and the rule of law cannot be tailored, nor are they separable.