Rubio Invokes “Men With Swords” Against ICC as U.S. Rejects International Legal Restraints

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio used a Nov. 13 address to the Federalist Society in Washington to argue that international law should not limit American power, pairing a denunciation of the International Criminal Court with an implied threat against attempts to enforce its decisions on U.S. citizens.

Rubio called the ICC “fake and illegitimate” and said international law had been invoked against nearly every major foreign-policy action of the Trump administration. He cited U.S. attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the U.S. capture of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and Washington’s joint war with Israel against Iran.

The address was delivered at the conservative legal organization’s National Lawyers Convention and published in a State Department transcript. Reuters independently reported the speech on Nov. 14, describing it as an explicit case for a more muscular foreign policy unconstrained by international legal institutions.

The sharpest passage concerned enforcement. Rubio said the court could try to act against Americans, but warned that Washington’s response would be the one attributed to the Roman general Pompey: “Stop quoting laws to men with swords.” The remark drew applause.

Rubio did not announce a new military operation or identify a specific ICC officer as a target. But the language matters because it came from the country’s top diplomat after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the court itself in October. Those measures followed earlier U.S. designations against judges, prosecutors and staff.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague. Photo: Tony Webster, July 23, 2024 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Cropped for display.

The ICC rejected the institutional sanctions as an attempt to obstruct justice and intimidate people who work with the court. It said 125 states had entrusted the tribunal with prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression. Court President Tomoko Akane said the institution would continue acting on the law and evidence.

Washington has never ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC. But the court’s jurisdiction is not limited to the nationality of an accused person: it can also cover alleged crimes committed on the territory of a state party or in a situation referred by the United Nations Security Council. That dispute has long placed the United States at odds with the tribunal, including over its Afghanistan investigation.

The conflict intensified after ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over alleged crimes in Gaza. Israel and the United States reject the court’s jurisdiction and the allegations. ICC supporters argue that sanctions on judges and prosecutors attack the independence of a treaty-based court and make accountability harder for victims. Pamphlets reported on the latest diplomatic push for ceasefire compliance after an Israeli strike on Gaza’s Nasser Hospital.

Rubio also tied his legal argument to the administration’s wider use of force. He defended the stated U.S.-Israeli objective of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, even as the White House weighs whether to pause further strikes amid regional pressure. His speech therefore went beyond a technical jurisdictional objection: it presented international law itself as a political instrument used to weaken U.S. sovereignty.

That framing carries consequences for smaller states. A system in which powerful governments reserve the right to ignore rules while demanding compliance from others is not neutral sovereignty; it is hierarchy. The court has serious critics, including over selectivity and the uneven enforcement of warrants. Yet threatening the institution rather than contesting its decisions through law deepens precisely the double standard that has damaged confidence in the international order.

Rubio’s speech leaves the administration’s immediate next step unclear. What is clear is the doctrine it advances: American power is to be judged first by American officials, and institutions created to prosecute the gravest crimes may face coercion when their work reaches Washington or its allies.

Additional court context: ICC President Tomoko Akane’s November address to the United Nations General Assembly. Hero photo: Secretary Marco Rubio in Paris, Nov. 10, 2026; official U.S. Department of State photograph by Freddie Everett, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.