The Warring Visions of American Power

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**Ezra Klein** (1:00)
What is the foundation upon which a new, more moral, more just American foreign policy can be built, particularly after the devastation Donald Trump has wrought on international norms and rules?
One answer I'm watching a lot of people come to, and particularly on the left, is that international law, which has fallen into such disrepair, can possibly be a source of renewal. That if America simply followed the rules that it helped write, then a much better world is possible. I've ordered Can International Law, which has both been so weak at times, and also been so inspiring about this, can it actually bear that weight? Linda Kinstler is a fellow at Harvard. She's a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, and the author of Come to This Court and Cry, How the Holocaust Ends. She does some incredible writing and reporting on whether or not what we're watching is the death or the renewal of international law.
Linda Kinstler, welcome to the show.

**Linda Kinstler** (2:05)
Thanks so much for having me.

**Ezra Klein** (2:06)
So I want to begin with this video that Mayor Zahra Mamdani released not that long ago, arguing for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu.

**Zahra Mamdani** (2:16)
There is a reason the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest. As human beings, we have spent generations building a shared understanding that there are crimes so grave, they offend all of humanity.
Anyone with their eyes, with their heart, with their conscience should recognize the devastation he has wrought and understand that he belongs before a court of law. It is clear that we do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant. The federal government, however, does. And I call on them to join the ICC and execute this warrant. And I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large.

**Ezra Klein** (2:57)
What did you make of that? Not just the decision to release it, which has been controversial, but the focus in it on the relationship between America and the International Criminal Court?

**Linda Kinstler** (3:10)
Yeah. I mean, I think, first of all, that was an immensely rhetorically powerful thing to do, even in enunciating the crimes in Gaza, that I think we cannot underestimate just the kind of moral force of enunciating what those crimes were and articulating them precisely at the moment when they have been indigated and denied in so many different places around the world, especially in the United States.
I think what that did was call attention to the fact that international law is not separate from politics, that it is something that we need politicians to speak about as a force that exists and can be used if we choose to use it. Of course, while he was calling attention to the fact that he doesn't have the authority to execute the ICC arrest warrant.

**Ezra Klein** (3:58)
America is not a signatory.

**Linda Kinstler** (3:59)
Exactly, so there is, you know, but-

**Ezra Klein** (4:01)
And the Secretary of State in America wants to destroy the court.

**Marco Rubio** (4:04)
Halfway across the world, there's an institution that calls itself the International Criminal Court. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. But chances are you don't know the names of its judges, of its prosecutors or its president, and you shouldn't have to.
But as we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes and compacts and force of so-called international law.

**Linda Kinstler** (4:30)
Right. No, there's all these reasons. It's completely not actionable. It's a double-edged sword because on the one hand, you're calling attention to the fact that the ICC does exist, perhaps alerting people to the fact that there is an arrest warrant.
On the other hand, there's a danger because you're also calling attention to the paucity of international law, of its inability to work. This disjuncture between this idea of arresting the imagery captured of Netanyahu being arrested in York City versus the reality, which is that that's never going to happen, I think that disjuncture is kind of dangerous for the perpetuation of international law.