In his Feb. 4 foreign-policy address, U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to make human rights and multilateralism cornerstones of his approach to global affairs. But that’s a pledge he appears to have forgotten just a day later, on Feb. 5, when the pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled that ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has the authority to investigate possible war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in the West Bank and Gaza Strip—by Israeli and Palestinian personnel alike. Biden’s State Department immediately criticized the court’s scrutiny of Israeli activity—though it had commended its probe into an Ugandan warlord hours earlier. Now, Bensouda’s March 3 announcement that she will use her authority to open an investigation into the situation in Palestine promises to be another critical test of Biden’s commitment to human rights.
Restoring U.S. credibility around the world—which Biden says he will do—means resetting the United States’ relationship with the ICC, the premier body of international criminal justice. Ideally, Washington would join the court; at the very least, it should refrain from interfering in the ICC’s scrutiny of U.S. nationals and allies like Israel. But all signs indicate that Biden is reverting to the Obama-era modus operandi: selective support for the ICC, which undermines U.S. credibility and threatens the viability of the court itself.
