Description
Despite the United States’ longstanding role of protector of liberal values and institutions, President Donald Trump steered the country away from such role by prioritising domestic interests over the promotion of universal liberalism. This attitude was mostly confirmed, starting from late 2017, by the growing hostility of the US towards the International Criminal Court (ICC) to the point of imposing sanctions against its Prosecutor and senior prosecution officials. Although the US has never ratified the founding treaty of the ICC – the Rome Statute –, the Trump administration’s harsh narrative was unprecedented as it turned against the Court’s legitimacy. By drawing on the constructivist literature on norm contestation, this article seeks to understand on what grounds the Trump administration contested the ICC and its norm of non-impunity, and its policy implications. It argues that this case study exemplifies a “contestation from within”, hence, originating from one of the leaders of the international liberal order, namely the US. Ultimately, it contributes to the research on contestation in the field by taking an original perspective which focuses on one of the founders of the liberal international order and shifts the attention on the impact this might have on the functioning and stability of the current international order.
