US Urged NATO Allies to Withdraw From ICC, Report Says

The United States has pressed its NATO allies to help dismantle the International Criminal Court and withdraw from the treaty that established it, according to a report citing three anonymous NATO diplomats. US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker made the appeal during a closed-door meeting of the alliance's 32 ambassadors in Brussels in mid-July, raising the matter as a side point to an otherwise regular agenda, the diplomats said. He urged member states to help take the court apart, to leave the Rome Statute, and to assess what threats the court might pose to their own sovereignty. The diplomats said Whitaker closed his remarks by saying the United States would be watching closely who stands with America. In parallel, the US Mission to NATO circulated a diplomatic paper to allied delegations stating that the United States would systematically dismantle the capabilities of the ICC and firmly requesting that allies immediately take steps to withdraw. The paper instructed partners to publicly denounce the court's mandate as overreach and to halt all material support to it, according to details of the document shared with the reporting outlet.