Rubio assails the International Criminal Court in a Federalist Society speech, quoting Pompey: "Stop quoting laws to men with swords"
Secretary of State Marco Rubio attacked the International Criminal Court in a speech to the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention in Washington on Friday, arguing against international law restraining US actions. Rubio said Americans never agreed to submit to the court's authority, that the US would not submit to "radical judges or soulless global bureaucrats", and that if the court tried to enforce its rulings against Americans, Washington's answer — quoting the Roman general Pompey — would be: "Stop quoting laws to men with swords." US sanctions on the court, announced last month, are due to take effect in April.
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Key points
- Rubio attacked the ICC in his Federalist Society lecture in Washington on Friday — his first prepared speech since the midterms.
- His words: Americans never agreed to the court's authority, and the US will not submit to 'radical judges or soulless global bureaucrats'.
- Quoting Pompey, he said the answer to enforcement against Americans would be: 'Stop quoting laws to men with swords.'
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- US sanctions on the court, announced last month, are due to take effect in April; no ICC response appears in the reporting read.
Watch: the moment itself
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Video: U.S. Department of State · Watch on YouTube
What happened
The speech argued for a muscular foreign policy and against international law restraining US actions, and dismissed criticisms that the administration has broken international law — over, among other things, the seizure of Venezuela's then-president and strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that the administration says were carrying drugs, as Reuters summarised them.
The Trump administration has long been hostile to the Hague court, founded in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and has previously imposed sanctions on its prosecutors and judges.
Both sides, in their own words
Both sides heard. Neither believed for free. Publishing a side's version is not endorsing it — the claim checks below are where verdicts live.
Side A · Secretary Rubio and the US administration
- Americans never agreed to submit to the ICC's authority, and the court and its allies have appointed themselves 'judge and jury and executioner of the international order'.
- The US will not submit to 'the sterile vision of radical judges or soulless global bureaucrats', and would answer enforcement against Americans with the Pompey line: 'Stop quoting laws to men with swords.'
Side B · The ICC and its supporters
- The court, founded in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, has long rejected the US position that it may not act where a state will not prosecute its own — no ICC statement on this speech appears in the reporting read.
Independently verified
4 claims independently verified — listed in the claim-by-claim check below.Not yet verified
1 claim not yet verified — listed in the claim-by-claim check below.What we know / what we don't know yet
What we know
- The speech, its venue and Rubio's words are on the record and on the State Department's own recording.
- The sanctions on the court were announced last month and are due to take effect in April.
What we don't know yet
- The ICC's response to the speech — none appears in the reporting read.
- Whether the April sanctions are averted by an agreement, as Reuters reports is possible.
Claim by claim
Show all claims (5)
Why this label: The venue, the lecture and the date are the Federalist Society's and the State Department's own records; the State Department streamed the speech itself.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Rubio's words are his own on-record statement, carried verbatim from Reuters' report of the speech; AFP's report of the speech agrees on the lines and the framing.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: The quotation and the force suggestion are Rubio's, as reported; what the US would in fact do is a separate, untested question and is not stated here as fact.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: The sanctions, their April effective date and Rubio's stated justification are Reuters' report; the assertion about the court's intentions is Rubio's position, labelled as such.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Reuters' report carries no ICC response; the gap is recorded here rather than filled with the court's general positions.
On the ladder: the evidence so far sits low — early, single or social sources. We publish the claim as a claim, never as fact.
Why it matters
The ICC's authority over citizens of countries that never joined it — the US among them — is one of the oldest fights in international law. A secretary of state saying, in terms, that enforcement would be met with force, and sanctions already dated for April, move that fight from doctrine toward confrontation.
Background
The International Criminal Court is founded to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide; the United States never joins it.
The US announces sanctions against the ICC, due to take effect in April.
Rubio delivers the Federalist Society lecture attacking the court.
Update history
No silent edits. Every change is written here, with its time.
- Latest
Published in Checking state — Rubio's words are his own on-record statement; the court's response has not appeared in the reporting read and is carried in the don't-know list.