Ever the believers in the power of global jurisprudence, it is understandable that European Union leaders are pushing for a United Nations-backed international tribunal to try Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The question is, why is Washington cheering?

American administrations have long been leery when it comes to international jurisdictions. Like several other world powers, Washington has declined to ratify the 1998 Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, a permanent, Hague-based venue to try cases involving charges of war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity.

Under its statute, the ICC has no jurisdiction over non-member countries such as America — or, for that matter, Russia and Ukraine. Yet, following a request from Kyiv, ICC investigators are already collecting evidence of Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine. Now the European Union wants to set up a new tribunal to try President Putin on related charges. 

“We are ready to start working with the international community to get the broadest international support possible for this specialized court,” the European commision president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Wednesday. The new venue, she added, would “investigate and prosecute Russia’s crime of aggression” in Ukraine.

As defined, crimes of aggression are committed by heads of state — even as such leaders, paradoxically, are afforded “functional immunity” from international prosecution. Unidentified EU officials quoted by Reuters said, therefore, that it is “essential” to involve the United Nations “in order to be able to overcome the principle of immunity.”

Gaining UN backing could prove tricky, however. International tribunals are typically set up by the UN Security Council, on which Russia is one of five veto-wielding powers. That was one reason Ms. von der Leyen vowed to “work with the ICC” to set up the tribunal. 

At Washington, meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators led by Lindsey Graham introduced a resolution in March that called on the administration to “use its voice, vote, and influence in international institutions in which they are members to hold President Vladimir Putin” accountable. It also “urged the ICC” to go after Mr. Putin, Mr. Graham said. 

“That was quite a resolution,” a former Department of State lawyer who is now a University of Arizona law professor and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Orde Kittrie, told the Sun. Mr. Putin “has committed a tremendous number of war crimes and needs to be punished,” he said, adding however that Washington must be careful that support of global trial venues “doesn’t turn around against America and Israel.”

Although America is not a member, the ICC has already launched an investigation into suspected war crimes by members of the American Armed Forces and the CIA who are fighting terrorism in ICC-member Afghanistan.

Similarly, under the pretext that the West Bank is defined by the UN as an “occupied Palestinian state,” the ICC is investigating non-member Israel for alleged crimes committed there. The Palestinian Authority was accepted as an ICC member in 2015 after long pushing for international prosecution of Israeli officials. 

America and Israel regularly investigate and prosecute suspected crimes committed by their soldiers. The American support of the ICC and other world jurisdictions could “turn around against the U.S. and Israel, where no war crimes are committed, or if they are, they can be tried” in national venues, Mr. Kittrie said. 

According to the Rome Statute, the ICC is a court of “last resort,” to be used only in cases that local legal authorities are “unwilling or unable to prosecute.” Indeed, the court has closed a case against British troops in Iraq after they were investigated — but not prosecuted — in Britain. For now, however, the ICC’s investigations against Americans in Afghanistan and Israelis in the West Bank remain active. 

In June 2020, President Trump issued an executive order arguing that the ICC investigation of Americans “constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” The order imposed sanctions against ICC personnel. 

President Obama opposed international investigations against American personnel as well. Yet, he cooperated with several UN Security Council resolutions that authorized the ICC to investigate war crimes committed in conflicts in Africa. 

The FBI recently launched an investigation over the death of an Al Jazeera television reporter, Sheerin Abu Akleh, who was likely killed by an Israeli bullet while covering a Jenin gun fight, according to an investigation of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The American probe could boomerang: If Israeli institutions need to be investigated despite the country’s well-regarded jurisprudence system, who is to say that Americans will not be put through the grinder of the international legal system as well? 

Deterring Russian war crimes in Ukraine by threatening prosecution is a worthy goal. Yet, at least as far as America is concerned, investigations and possible trials should be conducted under Ukrainian law, rather than under the slippery slope of international venues.