Democracy, International Justice, and Their Shared Fate
James A. Goldston, Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative and Assistant Professor at New York University School of Law, is a former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court and former federal prosecutor in New York.
The architecture of international justice — the rules, standards, and institutions that have directed efforts to hold perpetrators of serious crimes accountable — was largely built on the assumption that the world was moving toward greater respect for democracy and human rights.
Certainly, progress has not been linear; there have been some sidesteps and steps backward. But since the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials, which prosecuted German and Japanese offenders after World War II, and the adoption of the Rome Statute in 1998, which established the International Criminal Court, the general course has been toward accountability. Despite their shortcomings and crimes, some of the world’s oldest and strongest democracies have helped lead the campaign for justice in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone.
However, recent events have turned this trend in the opposite direction. In many democracies, including the United States, authoritarian leaders who disdain human rights have come to power. The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2016, followed by his reelection in 2024, has been particularly concerning. Indeed, under Trump’s second administration, the United States — whose leadership of the international justice system is as essential as it is inconsistent — went so far as to impose sanctions on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as two of the deputy prosecutors and six of its judges.
The United States is not the only democracy facing pressure from authoritarian forces fearful of any form of accountability. According to news reports, even before the current war in Gaza, the then-director of Israeli intelligence, Mossad, reportedly threatened then-ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda as part of a years-long pressure campaign to prevent investigations into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine. In 2019, the Philippines withdrew from the International Criminal Court following the court’s investigation into President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug campaign. Earlier this year, Hungary proudly announced its intention to do the same shortly after it refused to execute an ICC arrest warrant.
International justice is not solely of concern to democracies. Joseph Stalin was one of the Allied leaders who agreed to establish the International Military Tribunal held at Nuremberg after World War II. As Robert Jackson, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice who served as U.S. Prosecutor at Nuremberg, noted in his opening statement, the trial was “part of a great effort to make the peace more secure.” Similarly, the Rome Statute, signed by governments from a variety of political backgrounds, recognizes that “serious crimes threaten the peace, security, and well-being of the world.”
Even so, the global shift toward authoritarianism makes the world a less welcoming place for independent judges and lawyers seeking to achieve justice for the victims of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. When elected heads of state seek to expand their powers beyond traditional boundaries, and when governments dismiss leaders of bar associations and level criminal charges against them, and when judges in national courts are threatened for acting as a bulwark against executive overreach, the rule of law suffers — to everyone’s detriment.
The question now is whether the project aimed at holding high-level perpetrators accountable can endure at all. Amid the challenges and disillusionment, I find hope in many forms of courage, resistance, and faith in the law as a tool for resisting the arrogance of power. Indeed, such progress is contagious: strengthening the rule of law anywhere makes a culture of the rule of law possible everywhere.
We need only to look at judges who have defended the integrity of democratic elections in Senegal, India, Brazil, and other countries — often exposing themselves to grave risks. Or consider the U.S. courts that have rejected illegal attempts to punish law firms for the clients they represent, and university students for what they say.
Globally, the International Court of Justice has bravely taken the initiative to highlight atrocities in Myanmar, Syria, and Gaza. Over the past year, rulings by the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have confirmed that states are legally obligated to address climate change.
Despite the disconnect between the ongoing struggle for international justice and the struggle for democracy, the two efforts are interconnected. While hope alone is insufficient to prevail in either struggle, it is an essential ingredient — for the victims of atrocities and for all those who fear that their next expression of dissent may be their last. In an atmosphere of pervasive fear, every decision to sign a letter, join a peaceful protest, or file a legal complaint against authoritarian actions is a step toward justice.
This commentary is excerpted from James A. Goldston’s acceptance speech for the 2025 Joshua H. Heinz Humanitarian Achievement Award.
Translation: Ibrahim Mohamed Ali
