No, they’re not. The ICC has no authority over ANY state, it has authority over people who are citizens of many states, but not citizens of the US, because the US has a functioning justice system that responds to the things the ICC is focused on. Because of this, there is no need to indict a US citizen in the ICC, you can do it in the US justice system, which is why the US points out that their citizens do not need to be subjected to the ICC.
> because the US has a functioning justice system that responds to the things the ICC is focused on.
Well, that’s the position of US law.
There are certainly cases one might point to and make the argument that the US domestic system does not always effectively deal with US war crimes and the crime of aggression.
Aggression is not criminal. There are times when the US has had soldiers commit war crimes, and it’s debatable how effective the US has been at prosecuting such things historically, but it does make a realistic attempt to do so.
Please let me know when we find mass graves of women and children defiled and murdered by US soldiers, which is unfortunately common behavior for the militaries of many other states, which the ICC has been involved in prosecuting.
The crime of aggression (aka crime against peace) is, like war crimes and crimes against humanity, a widely recognized crime, prosecuted in the various peri-/post-WWII tribunals, though it took a while for the ICC to settle on its operationalization.
> There are times when the US has had soldiers commit war crimes, and it’s debatable how effective the US has been at prosecuting such things historically, but it does make a realistic attempt to do so.
The standard for ICC jurisdiction isn’t general adequacy, it is specific good faith action in the particular case.
The ICC is not the only international tribunal who's authority the USA doesn't recognize on its own citizens/self. There's also the ICJ, which has found the USA guilty of war crimes and ordered it to pay restitution at least once, for having mined Nicaragua's harbors, which the US very explicitly and publically refused to recognize.
