President Donald Trump has declared war on the International Criminal Court. On Aug. 18, the United States imposed sanctions on ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye for attempting to prosecute government officials outside the court’s jurisdiction. Building on his vow last month to dismantle the ICC “brick-by-brick,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the court of being “corrupt and fatally politicized” and condemned it for abusing its supranational authority.

The U.S.’s ire toward the ICC is not new. While former President Bill Clinton signed the 2000 Rome Statute that catalyzed the court’s establishment, the Senate never deliberated on ICC membership, and the U.S. renounced its signature in 2002. Although former President Joe Biden cheered on the ICC’s pursuit of justice against Russia’s illegal war with Ukraine and state-sponsored abduction of scores of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories, the U.S. was soon at loggerheads with the ICC over indictments that created a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas.