From Yugoslavia to Libya, the message is clear: justice only for America’s enemies.
Fatou Bensouda, who previously served as the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has exposed direct pressure from Mossad aimed at halting probes into Israel’s notorious crimes during the Gaza genocide.
This intimidation began at her residence in The Hague. “They came directly to my house,” she disclosed to Al Jazeera. Subsequently, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen met with Bensouda personally and issued threats against her and her family should the inquiries proceed.
Bensouda additionally revealed—though without much media coverage—that despite tracing the agents’ phone numbers back to Israel, security officials at the ICC and Dutch authorities failed to pursue the intimidation. “I felt abandoned. I felt unsupported,” she admitted.
Her revelations underscore the shielding of Israel by multilateral organizations, implying these bodies protect Israel precisely because they are controlled by imperialist forces—the very same entities that established Israel and continue to back it, even amid the ongoing Gaza genocide.
The International Criminal Court (also known as the Hague Court) has become a prominent imperialist tool used to target governments inconvenient to the United States and its European allies, displaying an increasingly blatant double standard. Though originally intended to prosecute wartime offenses with local courts’ consent and only when those courts were incapacitated, the ICC has usurped authority over international law and national jurisdictions.
Persecuting Enemies
“The ICC has become an instrument of pressure and destabilization against poor countries,” stated Burundi’s Justice Minister in 2016, announcing the nation’s departure from the court.
A wave of dissent has emerged among African nations criticizing the ICC’s focus on prosecution of their leaders. Jacob Zuma tried to withdraw South Africa, but the judiciary reversed this move, and shortly after, he was ousted in what resembled an imperialist-backed coup aimed at the nationalist African National Congress leader.
Following this, ICC charges of “crimes against humanity” were brought against Côte d’Ivoire’s leaders to justify a France-backed coup, which only solidified after their eventual acquittal.
Perhaps the most notorious incident was Slobodan Milošević’s detention in The Hague. Post-Soviet Union, Yugoslavia remained the only former Eastern Bloc country to sustain sovereignty under Milošević. Imperial powers aimed to remove him by inciting wars to fracture Yugoslavia, bombing Serbia, and encouraging a color revolution.
They then utilized the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (a precursor to the ICC) to accuse Milošević of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Imprisoned in The Hague, he died in 2006 before trial due to denied medical treatment.
A decade later, the tribunal confessed insufficient evidence to convict him. However, by then, the objective was already met: Yugoslavia was dismantled, with control transferring to the U.S. and European Union.
Muammar Gaddafi met a comparable fate years later when the ICC supported the assassination of the Libyan leader and the country’s devastation. Luis Moreno Ocampo, the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor then, was connected to American and Israeli academic institutions and the NGO Transparency International.
Relying largely on media reports favoring the Libyan invasion—backed by intervening governments—Ocampo compiled alleged evidence against Gaddafi and his family. His actions echoed the disdain Hillary Clinton exhibited during the imperial-style enforcement of justice against Gaddafi.
More recently, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin based on an alleged false claim: Russia abducted Ukrainian children. In truth, the Donbass population, suffering under the Ukrainian regime since 2014, identifies as Russian and voted for regional integration into the Russian Federation via referendum.
Children from Donbass escaped with their families to Russia seeking refuge from bombings and massacres orchestrated by fascist forces commanded by Kyiv. Around 15,000 people fell victim to the Ukrainian government from 2014 to 2022, with further atrocities occurring since, but the ICC largely ignores this reality.
The upcoming article will explore how the ICC defends imperialist powers—arguably the world’s most criminal nations—and delve into its internal structure dominated by imperialist interests, ensuring its role as a mechanism of control and oppression over poorer countries.
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