Mounting evidence of widespread Russian killings in Ukraine is urging the Biden administration and lawmakers from both parties to demand justice at a global level — specifically, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Now Rep. Ilhan Omar is challenging them to increase that prospect by making the U.S. a member of the court and repealing a George W. Bush-era law that requires the U.S. to block the court from investigating Americans.
“We’ve engaged in a process for a long time of delegitimizing these international institutions that essentially call for accountability, and I think it is really disturbing that we now think they are powerful enough … to hold Russia accountable. It’s easy for people to see the hypocrisy in those two statements when we’ve said previously that we don’t believe in the ability of the court to [be] unbiased,” Omar said on Wednesday.
The congresswoman discussed a new plan to introduce a package of legislation in the House of Representatives on Thursday that would set the U.S. on a course to join the court.
She shared previously unreported aspects of the package: revoking the 2002 measure known as the Hague Invasion Act and enshrining the position of the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice, a team that the Trump administration considering shutting down.
“It’s really important for us not to have a law on the books that says in many ways it is OK for everyone to be prosecuted” but not Americans, think about just how much more powerful of a statement it would be if we didn’t just call for accountability for war crimes in Ukraine in holding Russians accountable for the possible war crimes they have committed but if we actually had skin in the game.”
















