ICC Action on Iran and Israel — Why International Justice Appears Arbitrary
The ICC has taken no action against Iran's leaders because the court has no jurisdiction over crimes committed inside Iran, which is not a member of the ICC and is shielded from referral by Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN Security Council. By contrast, the ICC does claim jurisdiction over Israel through the State of Palestine, which joined the Rome Statute, allowing the ICC Prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes on Palestinian territory.
This difference shows how international criminal law is often shaped less by universal principles and more by political structures and jurisdictional gaps, making the system appear arbitrary — and to many observers, morally corrupt.
The ICC's Broad Reach — and Its Limits
Beyond Israel, the ICC has pursued a wide range of individuals worldwide, including Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for genocide, Joseph Kony for mass abductions and war crimes, Vladimir Putin for unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, Rodrigo Duterte for extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, and multiple Hamas leaders for atrocities committed on October 7 and afterward.
The ICC has also targeted leaders in Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Libya, Myanmar, and the Central African Republic. These cases show that the ICC's reach is broad — but always limited by jurisdiction, state consent, and geopolitical veto power, which is why some regimes face prosecution while others remain untouched.
Who Has Actually Been Convicted by the ICC?
Despite many investigations and arrest warrants, the ICC has convicted only a small number of individuals, mostly from African conflicts:
Thomas Lubanga — Convicted for using child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Germain Katanga — Convicted for war crimes related to an attack on a village in Congo.
Jean-Pierre Bemba — Convicted for war crimes in the Central African Republic (later overturned on appeal).
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi — Convicted for destroying cultural heritage sites in Timbuktu.
Dominic Ongwen — Former LRA commander, convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Real Problem
These convictions highlight how rare successful ICC prosecutions are — and how heavily they depend on the ability to physically arrest suspects, something impossible in countries protected by powerful allies or outside ICC jurisdiction.
The result is a system that pursues some atrocities while ignoring others, not because of moral calculation but because of structural design. Iran's leaders will never face the ICC — not because their actions are less severe, but because the architecture of international law was built with exits for the powerful.
Justice, in this system, is not blind. It is selective by design.
