Last week, Washington announced more unilateral sanctions. Unfortunately, this has already become common practice for the United States. These sanctions are directed at an unusual target - not one of the many countries that are out of US favour, but the International Criminal Court and its staff. This event was the subject of a joint briefing by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defence, the Attorney General and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

As regards the assessments of what is happening at the ICC, the statements by the senior representatives of the US administration did not contain anything new to us. We have been consistently talking for a long time about the system-wide and deep-lying problems at the ICC at specialised international venues. Even some textual coincidences can be found – for example Mr Mike Pompeo noted that in 18 years of operation, the court secured only four convictions for major crimes despite spending well over $1 billion. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry statement of November 16, 2016 highlighted the same problem, and in literally the same wording. Only, the ICC was 14 years old then, not 18.

However, the statements made at the June 11 briefing said more than that, and added up to a rather unexpected picture: Washington seems to view the ICC as an institution that seeks to imprison American soldiers defending freedom because Russia is using the court for its own interests.

I will quote US Attorney General William Barr. He said that the Department of Justice is “concerned that foreign powers like Russia are also manipulating the International Criminal Court in pursuit of their own agenda.” We remind the Attorney General that the Russian Federation is not manipulating the International Criminal Court, and moreover, never engages with it, or finances it, or participates in its bodies or maintains any contact with it whatsoever. The United States, on the contrary, is clearly trying to influence the ICC, apparently to prevent the prosecution of US military members as part of the Afghan dossier. The sanctions are just one piece of evidence for that.

Apparently Washington advocates the fight against impunity only when the fight does not affect the United States itself and can be used to put pressure on another government or intervene in internal affairs - a very indicative example of double standards. And also a good illustration of the “rules-based international order” concept actively promoted by the Americans and their allies, where the United States, apparently, has the privilege to determine the rules the rest of the world should play by.