THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS – NOVEMBER 29: Human Rights activists from Palestine, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates rally outside the International Criminal Court to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29, 2024 in The Hague, Netherlands. In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly called for 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The day marks the anniversary of Resolution 181 which advocated for the partition of Palestine into two States: one Arab and one Jewish. (Photo by Pierre Crom/Getty Images)
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This has been a difficult period for the International Criminal Court (ICC). This juridical body, established by the United Nations in 2002 pursuant to the “Rome Statute,” was established as the first permanent international court charged with prosecuting individuals accused of “the most serious of international crimes.”
Since its inception, the ICC has been highly controversial, with countries such as the United States, China, Russia, India, Israel, and Saudi Arabia refusing to recognize its jurisdiction. Indeed, the United States was so concerned about potential abuse that shortly after the Court was formed, Congress passed the American Service-Members Protection Act (ASPA). This law forbids the arrest of United States military personnel and other elected officials who have been charged by the ICC.
Recent events involving a former ICC Prosecutor accused of improperly meddling in the dispute between the South Caucasus nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan show why Congress and the State Department have had reason to be so concerned.
Last July, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced, “a sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.” In the same month, the most recent ICC Prosecutor, British-born Karim Khan, was removed from office by the ICC after an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct began in May 2024. But ICC’s problems did not start with Mr. Khan.
The Court’s founding prosecutor, Argentine jurist Luis Moreno Ocampo, held the role from 2003 to 2012. His tenure was marked by controversial, incompetent, and arguably corrupt prosecutions.
Among those was the “Ocampo Six” prosecution from Kenya. This was an investigation into post-election violence in Kenya that was botched so badly the case fell apart. The ICC’s own subsequent investigation found Ocampo to have had inappropriate external contact with NGOs, operated in an autocratic fashion, and thus undermined the prosecutorial effort. As a result, several witnesses under ICC protection disappeared and possibly were murdered, Kenyan civil society entered tumult, and t two of the people that Ocampo prematurely announced as responsible were elected to that country’s presidency and deputy president positions after running on an anti-ICC platform that painted the investigation as an example of neo-colonialist interference.
Earlier, in what seemed to be a “slam-dunk” prosecution of Thomas Luganga Dyilo of the Democratic Republic of Congo for the mass utilization of child soldiers and a litany of crimes against humanity, Ocampo almost blundered into a mistrial. The architect of a terror campaign only received 14 years in prison and has been free since 2020.
Despite his flawed record, since Mr. Ocampo left the ICC, he has continued to utilize his former association with the Court to meddle in international controversies, most importantly being the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Karabakh. Despite the investigation not being concluded, Mr. Ocampo was commissioned by Arayik Harutyunyan, the then-president of the self-proclaimed exclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, to produce a report on the conflict. Within a week he self-published an expert opinion entitled “Genocide Against Armenians in 2023,” and then proceeded to broadcast his message wherever he could.
On April 30, 2026, reports surfaced of Mr. Ocampo and his son Tomas having been recorded discussing ways to try to remove Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia with the connivance of Russian Armenian businessmen. This raised the possibility of improper interference with the Armenian electoral process, possibly also hurting reconciliation efforts between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is a major energy producer, producing approximately 7 billion barrels of oil and 2.5 Tcf of provable natural gas according to the International Energy Agency. Azerbaijan exports its oil through multinational pipelines, such as the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which stretches over 1,000 miles through the country of Georgia and on into Turkey.
Politically, Azerbaijan has been vocal about its energy support of Ukraine, especially during the Russia war. SOCAR, the Azeri state oil company, announced during a joint press conference with Ukraine that it… “continues its active operations in Ukraine, and we believe that the company has significant plans for the future.” Thus, Mr. Ocampo’s moves run the significant risk of impacting that war at a crucial junction.
Azerbaijan has one of the highest energy self-sufficiency rates in the world. Given that fact, its geography, and its political orientation, Azerbaijan could play an outsized role in the development of the region, but for the involvement of unwelcome interlopers, such as Mr. Ocampo as described above.
Peace is a messy process that demands compromise. If Mr. Ocampo or anyone else is trying to interfere to impede any potential settlement, it is dangerously easy to do so by appealing to vague notions of abstract justice under the name of a flawed international institution like the ICC. Ocampo has demonstrated, as has Karim Kahn, that uncontrolled authority, whether in the name of justice or any other ideal, can result in travesty if not outright tragedy.