The US-Israeli campaign to liquidate the ICC is working. Countries of conscience must intervene.
Craig Mokhiber writes in Mondoweiss on 11 June 2026:
On June 8, the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced a decision to suspend Chief ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan and to refer Khan to a special Session of the full Assembly of States parties for disciplinary proceedings.
Already under fire from U.S., UK, and Israeli officials, spy agencies, and proxies designed to intimidate Khan out of pursuing Israeli perpetrators for crimes in Palestine, Khan was accused in May of 2024 by a third party (not by an alleged victim) of workplace sexual misconduct and had gone on leave pending multiple levels of investigation. Khan was reportedly informed of the case against him just as he was preparing to announce arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and former Defense Minister. The warrants were nevertheless announced just days later.
The allegations against Khan (who denies the allegations) were investigated by the Court’s own independent Oversight Mechanism, which considered and closed the case due to lack of evidence and the absence of a complainant or cooperation from any alleged victim. The Bureau nevertheless referred the case for further fact finding by the UN Office of Internal Oversight (OIOS), and, ultimately, to an independent and impartial Judicial Panel appointed by the Bureau itself to determine whether misconduct had occurred.
OIOS produced its confidential report, which largely recorded the allegations and counterclaims, but reportedly “did not make conclusive factual findings of sexual misconduct or retaliation.” The Judicial Panel then reviewed the allegations and the OIOS findings of fact, and issued its decision in March of this year, unanimously concluding that the facts “did not establish misconduct or breach of duty under the relevant legal framework.”
Nevertheless, the political Bureau of states, led by Western governments, decided in April to disregard the results of the investigation and to proceed with a disciplinary process, further delaying the Prosecutor’s return to his duties, and has now issued this second decision referring Khan to the full Assembly for disciplinary proceedings.
In issuing these decisions, the political Bureau has stunned Court followers and campaigners for justice in genocide-ravaged Palestine for its open disregard for the findings of investigative bodies, its demonstrable procedural irregularities, the appearance of political bias, and a decade-long context of dedicated efforts by Israel, the U.S., the UK and other Western states to buttress Israeli impunity and to obstruct ICC justice on the Palestine case. Observers suspect that the obstruction campaign against Khan for his pursuit of Israeli perpetrators and the contemporaneous issuance of these decisions are more than just coincidental.
A political decision
The Bureau’s action is highly irregular and deeply inappropriate on its face. This is a small, political body, it lacks the expertise or independence to make quasi-judicial determinations or to overrule the findings of competent investigative and judicial bodies, it has had to invent new procedures of questionable legitimacy to interfere in this way, it is not representative of the full membership of the ICC, and its membership is heavily weighted in favor of the Israeli regime and its U.S. sponsor. Indeed, more than three-quarters of the Bureau members are aligned with the U.S. and Israel over Palestine. Importantly, members of the Bureau are not independent experts. Rather, they represent their respective states in the body.