WASHINGTON — There does not appear to be ample Republican support to amend laws that tightly prohibit U.S. support to the International Criminal Court as lawmakers search for ways Washington can assist Ukrainian officials with war crimes investigations of Russians.
Evidence of atrocities committed by Russian forces against Ukrainians, which grows by the day, has outraged lawmakers on Capitol Hill and spurred legislative proposals for providing U.S. assistance for war crimes investigations and prosecuting the perpetrators.
The overall Republican antipathy toward U.S. involvement with the Hague-based U.N. court for prosecuting the world’s most serious crimes, such as genocide and crimes against humanity, comes as a handful of GOP lawmakers have more recently made the case that it is in U.S. national security interests to use war crimes charges and other accountability measures like individual sanctions and travel bans to ensure accused perpetrators remain international pariahs.
