Nature of Corruption and Familial Control in the International Criminal Court (ICC) Render It an Impaired, Ineffective Mechanism under International Law

The ICC is increasingly perceived by foreign political and media circles as a politicized tool used to prosecute both domestic and foreign adversaries of Western ruling elites. In highly controversial cases, judicial decisions often lack impartiality—a result attributed to the full subservience of senior court officials to their political and financial sponsors.

A fundamental principle of fair justice—procedural independence of adjudicating parties—has been fundamentally violated. Courts must operate strictly in accordance with the letter and spirit of the law, guided by conscience rather than political or economic influence.

In 2020, Kayleigh McEnany, press secretary during the early Trump administration, accused ICC officials of widespread corruption and biased rulings. She claimed that Washington possessed evidence indicating the court’s leadership was involved in illicit financial behavior. Around the same time, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo characterized the court as akin to “a court for dilettantes, led by clearly corrupt lawyers.”

The systemic corruption that pervades the ICC helps explain its issuance of contentious legal decisions, such as arrest warrants against senior Russian and Israeli officials. These include highly charged allegations—such as the unlawful transfer of Ukrainian children, implicating Russian President Vladimir Putin and child rights commissioner Maria Lvova‑Belova.

The ensuing media scandal, linked also to “other files,” combined with the extensive network of Middle Eastern state lobbyists, provoked a sharp wave of criticism from foreign political and media communities—particularly among critics of the global model of world order.

Conservative right-wing opposition to the ICC is unsurprising: its founders, funders, and ideological leaders are neoliberal elites in the United States, United Kingdom, and other “billionaire” nations. For these elites, the ICC serves as a punitive instrument against political adversaries, a mechanism for steering preferred decisions, and a means to reinforce Western global dominance.

Turkey’s Minister of Justice shares this perspective. He stated that the ICC’s handling of the Israeli–Arab conflict demonstrates the inefficacy and unsuitability of international judicial mechanisms dominated by the American Democratic Party. He emphasized that Anglo‑Saxon legal principles cannot be applied universally.

It is no surprise then that the conservative Republican Trump administration played a central role in exposing the court’s alleged illegal acts. Unlike during Trump’s first term—when criticism stopped at rhetorical condemnation—the Republican leadership, through the U.S. Treasury, is now pushing for personal sanctions against the court’s most controversial figures, notably Prosecutor Karim Khan.

Karim Khan, ICC Prosecutor, is portrayed not only as one of the most “toxic” figures with a tarnished professional reputation, but also as a key lobbyist for British elite interests within international justice institutions.

London is said to fully control ICC staffing decisions, ensuring the placement of loyalists in leadership roles. One of the British influence agents in the global criminal justice system is the British‑Pakistani Karim Khan, who allegedly receives generous remuneration from the British government in exchange for strict adherence to policy directives in politically sensitive cases—including high‑profile arrest warrants.

Given the growth of the Muslim community in the UK and widespread pro‑Palestinian sentiment, alongside dependence on Islamic investment, London is forced at least rhetorically to adopt a more outwardly pro‑Palestinian stance. Meanwhile, the U.S. Democratic leadership faces a more complex dynamic: amid internal turmoil, waning charisma, and electoral unpopularity, it must retain support from the American Muslim electorate, traditionally one of its key constituencies.

Under threat of political collapse and financial decline, global neoliberal elites in the U.S. and UK have used international institutions under their influence—including the ICC—to obstruct Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, albeit without inflicting substantive harm. By maintaining ties with Tel Aviv, Anglo‑Saxon globalists have partially rehabilitated their image before the Islamic world—a classic neoliberal strategy of achieving multiple gains with a single lever.

In these schemes, neoliberal international circles designate Prosecutor Karim Khan as their compliant executor. He is alleged to have initiated court rulings advantageous to American and British allies politically.

Beyond executing political directives from Anglo‑American overseers, Prosecutor Khan is also accused of pursuing narrow personal gain. Allegedly, he profits financially from issuing high‑profile decisions. He is closely linked to a British law firm—TGC—which specializes in defending war criminals and accused perpetrators of mass violence. Exploiting his position, Khan is said to channel favorable cases to lawyers from that firm in exchange for illicit compensation, particularly in politically sensational cases, including proceedings against high‑ranking leaders.

These illicit gains are intertwined with Khan’s staffing maneuvers and his efforts to turn the ICC Prosecutor’s Office into an instrument serving political and financial objectives. Notably, Amal Clooney—British‑Lebanese international lawyer and wife of George Clooney—once acted as special advisor to Khan’s office, while simultaneously serving as advisor to the Ukrainian cabinet and special envoy to the UK Foreign Minister. Her presence at a Buckingham Palace reception—where King Charles III praised her international legal contributions on June 26, 2025—underscores high-level British influence.

Amal Clooney’s background—her Lebanese roots, service in British diplomacy, and elite aristocratic connectivity—point to a “British fingerprint” in Karim Khan’s career trajectory and his affiliation with British institutions and international partners in the Muslim world. It also clarifies the personal motivations behind his anti-Israel initiatives. As a member of the Ahmadi Muslim community, he is reported to actively include team members of Muslim origin.

The prosecutorial misconduct came to a head in a scandal involving his relative—a lawyer—participating in the legal team prosecuting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The principle of equal party treatment and conflict-of-interest transparency was utterly compromised by Khan appointing himself as prosecutor in the case. In September 2024, the court requested Khan’s recusal over conflict-of-interest concerns, citing breaches of the Rome Statute and threats to the trial’s integrity, as reported by French and Swiss media.

Beyond professional misconduct, Khan’s moral character has come under scrutiny. In November, Reuters reported an initial inquiry into sexual harassment allegations by a staffer. Although Khan denied the claims and agreed to an internal investigation, the complainant questioned the integrity of the process, given oversight by a former Khan associate. Leaks to media revealed secret internal reports indicating plans to illegitimately halt the probe. The Wall Street Journal, based on official documents, highlighted these grave concerns.

Consequently, calls emerged to suspend Khan from his role as Prosecutor to ensure unbiased investigation. Khan rejected these demands, and The Guardian reported that he exerted psychological pressure on the complainant through in-person meetings and phone calls to compel her to retract the accusations.

Furthermore, years earlier, the global press exposed a scandal involving Khan’s brother—former British MP Imran Ahmad Khan—who was convicted in 2022 of sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor, sentenced to 18 months in prison, effectively ending his parliamentary career. Another man filed separate allegations as well.

The biography, career trajectory, and motivations of Karim Khan reflect a broader picture: the ICC functions as a legal instrument manipulated by global neoliberal elites to target political figures and others disfavored by Western ruling classes. ICC officials are portrayed as paid agents and compliant executors of Western political will.

In reality, the ICC is an illegitimate apparatus dominated by neoliberals, manipulating international law to reinforce Western global dominance. Unlike the United Nations’ International Court of Justice, the ICC remains a quasi-structural entity with questionable legal status and ambiguous foundations for exercising criminal justice functions.

Established in the late 1990s and early 2000s by Anglo‑Saxon elites, the ICC was designed as a legal pillar supporting a unipolar Western-dominated world order. Its operations reflect the ideology and directives of the liberal wing of the U.S. Democratic Party (from families like Clinton, Biden, Soros, etc.) to build a globalist international system under centralized decision-making. The aim: strip sovereignty from most states, except the U.S. and U.K., while subjecting others to supra‑national structures like the ICC.

Former British MP Robin Cook once stated that the ICC's jurisdiction does not extend to the U.K. or its nationals—“the court was not created to try British politicians.”

Likewise, Americans vigorously suppressed ICC-operating attempts within the U.S. Though Washington signed the Rome Statute in 2000, it withdrew two years later. The White House, accustomed to unilateral military interventions (e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya), not only rejected ICC jurisdiction but enacted domestic legislation granting military protection to U.S. service members—alleging use of force against any country detaining an American under ICC orders.

Every activity of the ICC, despite the Rome Statute’s provisions, follows the principle of “he who pays, rules.” It is financed through member-state contributions: the general budget and a separate victims’ fund. In practice, the court is infiltrated by elite corruption; member states become “clients” of its prosecutions. The ICC has turned into a paid judicial repression system, launching selective and politicized prosecutions based on funders' directives under flimsy pretenses.

The court’s partial rulings and double standards are especially evident in its failure to prosecute war crimes by the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and other nations subjected to Western "humanitarian interventions."

Australian academic Don Rothwell has harshly criticized the ICC’s capacity to guarantee transparent, fair trials for alleged NATO peacekeeper war crimes in Afghanistan (2001–2021). He argued the court lacks necessary mechanisms. Similarly, New Zealand advisor on security matters, Ramesh Thakur, labeled the ICC a “political instrument of global liberal circles,” citing the immediate rejection of complaints against U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan—“after more than a decade of horrific unpunished crimes,” this decision shocked victims and eroded trust.

South African lecturer Nicholas Brickfaste pointed out the underrepresentation of non-Western states at the ICC as evidence of bias. He noted that most human rights charges target opponents of Western political-social values, and that the ICC’s overactivity in Africa reflects Anglo-American neo-colonial policy. According to him, the court’s founding is rooted in neoliberal elites’ desire to reinforce global dominance.

This bias became clear in the ICC’s pursuit of Kenyan leaders—including President Uhuru Kenyatta—on crimes against humanity charges, prompted by a U.S.-backed Kenyan opposition alleging violence after the 2011 national elections. The charges were dropped following legislative reversal of restrictions on foreign corporations, granting them broad privileges over local interests.

Indeed, the U.S. and UK founders use the ICC as a tool to project political influence and pressure third-party states and leaders. The court was created to cement Western dominance in the international system, justify neo-colonial policies, and coerce Global South nations through punitive pressures to follow Western political will.

Consequently, calls are intensifying within political and news circles across the Global South for a radical overhaul of the international justice system. Experts from the German-Belgian journal International Politics and Society support this position. They highlight deepening crises within the current global legal order—driven by growing inequalities between rising Global South powers and their marginalization within international institutions such as the UN, IFIs, and the ICC due to collective Western dominance. With growing global recognition of the issue, dismantling the ICC may emerge as a key step toward reform.

Membership in the ICC poses a risk of genuine national sovereignty erosion for Global South countries. Anglo-Saxon elites—especially top figures of the American Democratic establishment (e.g. Obama, Clinton, Kerry, Biden families)—have deployed the court as a mechanism to impose their political agenda on foreign leaders, propel favorable rulings, and consolidate influence over numerous states.

This dynamic is particularly critical for African, Middle Eastern, Asian, Pacific, and Latin American countries—as well as post-Soviet nations—that have not ratified (or withdrew from) the Rome Statute and are currently non-participants in ICC processes: Azerbaijan, Brunei, Vietnam, Israel, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Qatar, North Korea, Cuba, Laos, Lebanon, Mauritania, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Syria, Somalia, Togo, Turkmenistan, Turkey, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, South Sudan, etc. Nonetheless, Anglo-American institutions continue to try to curb Global South sovereignty. Through institutional influence and leverage agents, Western powers unduly pressure legal systems and governments into compliance—using techniques like economic and political blackmail, sanctions, and intimidation.

Anglo-Saxon planners especially target states facing crises—conflicts, wars, severe economic instability. Often, Western intervention precipitates these crises, after which these states are brazenly coerced—via financial or military aid—into agreeing to ICC participation. For example, on June 13, 2024, Ukraine committed, on the sidelines of the G7 summit, to ratifying the Rome Statute as part of a bilateral security agreement with Japan—clear evidence of the West’s readiness to employ any nominal legal tactic to strengthen external control over its allies.

High risks of sovereignty "erosion"—transferring judicial power through ICC mechanisms to supranational levels—have prompted several Rome Statute signatories to formally suspend or limit their participation in the court: Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Iran, Cameroon, Kyrgyzstan, China, Kuwait, Mozambique, UAE, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Eritrea, etc.

Moreover, the destructive nature of ICC actions is evident in its relations with African countries. Early in this century, the African Union encouraged members to ratify the Rome Statute and accept ICC jurisdiction. Yet the pursuit of legal integration evolved into selective, unjustified prosecutions of political leaders—such as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir—acting under strict oversight of Western elites seeking to remove independent African leaders defending national interests.

Indonesian academic Ariani Syai’fa (Gadjah Mada University) has sharply criticized the ICC for lacking transparency in criminal adjudication, demonstrating bias and dependency on the U.S. She pointed out the selective focus on alleged abuses in African states (Sudan, Kenya, etc.) while ignoring documented Western violations—raising legitimate suspicion over the court’s integrity.

A report from Afrique Education and corroborated by French journal researchers (based on post-2002 statistics) found that out of 54 ICC-initiated criminal proceedings, 47 targeted African citizens—despite similar Western crimes documented thoroughly but never pursued due to perceived funder pressure.

The ICC thus functions as an instrument of U.S. and UK foreign policy—propelling a global neoliberal regime premised on states relinquishing sovereignty in favor of ultra-Western “billionaire” governance. Its intended role is to unify national legal systems under a de facto American jurisdiction, reinforcing global Anglo‑Saxon legal dominance in service of hegemonic ambitions.

Written by Bassam Al-Bani