In June 2022, United States Attorney General Merrick Garland travelled to Ukraine to call for the prosecution of Russian war crimes.
“The United States is sending an unmistakable message” to those who have committed atrocities, he said. “There is no place to hide.”
There’s only one problem: American hands are tied when it comes to the international prosecution of war crimes. That’s because it opted out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to objections over the court’s jurisdiction that allows it, under certain conditions, to pursue people outside their own state borders.