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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sharply criticized the International Criminal Court and the U.N. in a speech to lawyers and law students, accusing what he called a “global elite” of using international law to undermine U.S. sovereignty.
Speaking at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention, Rubio said the State Department had heard international law cited against “nearly every major foreign policy decision or action” taken by the Trump administration.
His remarks drew loud applause from the audience.
Rubio cited President Donald Trump’s order for the military to sink cartel boats in the Caribbean, saying Washington had been accused of violating international law over the strikes.
He also said the founding chief prosecutor of what he called the “fake and illegitimate International Criminal Court” had accused the U.S. of crimes against humanity.
Rubio said similar accusations came from the U.N. after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January and brought him to the U.S. to face federal criminal charges.
“For this global elite, international law is not a neutral body of rules,” Rubio said.
“International law is an instrument, an instrument to advance their interest under the pretense of universal principles,” he added.
Rubio also defended Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on the ICC, describing the court as an “unelected world tribunal” claiming authority over sovereign countries, including those that have not accepted its jurisdiction.
“Americans have never agreed to submit to the ICC’s authority,” Rubio said, accusing the court and its supporters of appointing themselves “judge and jury and executioner of the international order.”
The secretary of state drew comparisons with the U.S. judicial system, accusing “activist courts” of trying to “govern by injunction.”
He argued that critics of the administration viewed the purpose of both U.S. and international law as weakening the United States.
Rubio rejected that argument, saying it had no basis in U.S. history.
“There is nothing, there is nothing in our history, or the history of any other great nation, that requires us to recognize the authority or legitimacy of any of these ridiculous ideas,” he said.
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