The Trump administration’s sanctions against officials of the International Criminal Court have triggered an outpouring of concern: European governments and human-rights organizations warn that the international justice institutions painstakingly constructed over three decades are being weakened. They’re right. But the problem is not Trump.
International justice spent years eroding the credibility and legitimacy on which its authority ultimately depends. The consequences will be on display Sept. 16, when judges in The Hague are scheduled to deliver a first-instance judgment in the case of Hashim Thaçi, ex-president of Kosovo. By then, he will have spent nearly six years in detention without a verdict.
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