Why International Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu and Putin Are Anti-democracy Legal Garbage

The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes in Gaza demonstrate, once again, the absurdity of that institution. The warrants discredit the ICC and complicate the prospects for peace in Gaza. But they also allow President-elect Donald Trump to strike a blow for American national sovereignty.

The ICC has ordered the arrest of Netanyahu and Gallant for allegedly violating the laws of war, principally, in the ICC prosecutor’s words, by executing a “plan to use starvation as a method of war and other acts of violence against the Gazan civilian population.”

The ICC has finally achieved what the war could not: full agreement between Netanyahu and the Biden administration, which promptly denounced the ICC’s decision. So did Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., whom President-elect Trump has designated as his national security adviser. The ICC also created an obstacle to peace negotiations: Netanyahu declared that Israel will now seek “total victory” in Gaza.

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John Yoo is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute, and a distinguished visiting professor at the School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley where he supervises the Public Law and Policy Program among other programs at Berkeley Law.