The current US government sanctions political enemies [0].
Wouldn't the more rational response to this legal situation be to leave the USA and move somewhere more willing to respect international law?
[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo...
According to the current administration, almost half of the US is considered a political enemy of the current administration.
Soon they might be pushing for Operating Systems to gather political party preference information, so they can know who should be restricted from the use of strong encryption. The options being:
1. I love america
2. Radical left looney
3. Neither male nor female.
4. Those that tremble as if they were mad[0]
[0]: https://thewhippet.org/the-whippet-134-those-that-tremble/#c...
It'll be interesting when/if they sanction Antifa. Since it doesn't exist, you can't prove that you're not a member of it. So they get to sanction anyone.
Proof has no relevance if you are prevented from accessing the legal system (e.g. thrown into a concentration camp for immigrants)
> move somewhere more willing to respect international law?
Some of these sanctions are required by international law (i.e. sanctions imposed by UNSC). For the other ones, international law generally lets countries have whatever trade policy they see fit including sanctions, unless they violate some other rule of international law or treaty obligation.
Sanctioning the ICC obviously has nothing to do with trade policy.
The USA signed the Rome Statute but never ratified it, and then withdrew its signatory status. There's an argument to be made that there was a treaty obligation there, but it's pretty weak.
I personally think sanctioning the ICC judges is a disgusting act. However ultimately all sanctions are decisions to refrain from trading with someone, so it is in a sense a trade policy. I think what you're getting at is that usa is implementing that policy to obtain a political/diplomatic goal, which is true, but you could say the same about most trade policies.
I think article 18(a) of the vienna convention of the law of treaties means that once you withdraw your signature, you no longer have any obligations in regards to the treaty.
Maybe you could make some sort of argument that the sanctions violate the purpose of the geneva convention as they are designed to prevent bringing to justice people accused of grave breaches of the geneva convention. Like its an attempt to frustrate the application of article 49 of the first geneva convention [Ianal]
Why would other countries be less likely to impose sanctions on their political enemies?
I can't answer why or why not but just in terms of track record the US is fairly egregious. The executive attempts to coerce individual UN officials via sanctions. While it may not be strictly illegal it is clearly flagrantly unethical.