The bloc’s former chief diplomat has criticized member states for cherry-picking when enforcing International Criminal Court rulings
EU member states are applying double standards to enforcing International Criminal Court (ICC) decisions, according to former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. He pointed out that while members of the bloc have called for enforcing an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, they have not shown the same commitment regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Borrell stressed that EU nations, as signatories to the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty, have a legal obligation to enforce the its decisions.
“Cherrypicking in applying the Rome Statute is incomprehensible,” Borrell said in a statement on X on Friday.
“How can we expect third countries to enforce the ICC arrest warrant against Putin (which they should!) and then say we won’t enforce it against Netanyahu?” he argued.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, as well as former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Ibrahim al-Masri, in November last year, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to the conflict in Gaza. Prior to that, in March 2023, the Hague-based court also issued a warrant for Putin on war crimes charges linked to the alleged forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
Many EU nations have made conflicting statements regarding the ICC decision on Netanyahu, pledging to support the court’s work in general but refusing to commit to his arrest. Only a handful of members have vowed to arrest the prime minister should he set foot on their soil, while Hungary explicitly said it would do nothing. The ICC’s decision also drew sharp criticism from Israel and its key ally, the US. Neither country recognizes the court’s authority.
Meanwhile, most EU countries have been adamant about acting on the arrest order for the Russian president. After Putin visited Mongolia, an ICC member state, in September 2024, the bloc issued a statement criticizing the country for failing to detain him. EU lead spokesperson Peter Stano said at the time the bloc expressed “its strongest support for efforts to ensure full accountability” for Russia’s alleged war crimes and called for full cooperation by all ICC parties on the issue of Putin’s arrest.
According to Borrell, such double standards in applying ICC decisions are “eroding” the bloc’s “credibility as a community of law.”
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Russia is among the nations that do not recognize the court’s authority and has repeatedly said it considers its decisions null and void. Moscow rejected the ICC accusations against Putin as absurd, stating that the children in question were lawfully evacuated from the war zone and not abducted, with Moscow ready to return them to their families should they file appropriate requests. Kiev has since confirmed that many of the children it initially listed as being kidnapped were actually with their families in third countries. The ICC warrants prompted a legal response in Russia, where the officials behind them face criminal proceedings.
