The statement by the Secretary of the US State Department, Marco Rubio, to support the dismantling of the International Criminal Court, clearly reveals the US government’s desire to favour the power politics of the United States also through the dismantling of the institutions created in the post-war period to defend human rights and democracy. This is a threat that must be taken seriously not only by federalists, who fought for the creation of the ICC, but by all democrats, whatever country they belong to, because history teaches us that the rise of authoritarian regimes in the last century undermined the foundations of the democratic state in Europe and in the world.
The MAGA policy, the ideology of the Trump administration, has already clearly shown its objectives of world domination both on the economic front, with punitive tariffs, and on the political front, with sudden military aggression by countries considered enemies, such as Venezuela and Iran. Now the attack to the ICC reveals long-term goals that show how democratic forces in all countries have become a target of the MAGA coalition.
Historian Marc Bloch wrote: “Ignorance of the past is not limited to damaging the understanding of the present; but it compromises, in the present, the action itself.” The political scientist, John Keane, entitled the chapter dedicated to democracy in the years between the two world wars: “The European Graveyard” (The Life and Death of Democracy, Pocket Books, 2009). Mussolini and Hitler did not seize power with a coup d’état, but by eroding the democratic system from within, thanks to the inability of the democratic parties to understand the real intentions of the two dictators. A similar operation also took place in our century in Putin’s Russia, after the disintegration of the USSR. Democracy must be actively defended, no clemency can be expected from its enemies.
Today, the erosion of democracy is visible in the United States and the European Union. A first sign in the US was the violence used to curb migration to expel numerous immigrants and the threats made to progressive universities. Also worrying is the continuous expansion of presidential powers, which the Court of Justice does not sufficiently curb, as in the case concerning threats against Governor Jerome Powell, while he was still chairman of the Federal Reserve System. According to The Economist (Degradation in progress, July 18th-24th 2026) “Less than halfway through his second term, Trump has turned the Department of Justice (DoJ) from an arm of the law into a muscular limb of the presidency. … Even if Americans elect a president who wants to restore the DoJ, the damage will be hard to reverse. … After Watergate, statesmanship and bipartisan effort were needed to create the modern DoJ. Today the stakes are as high, and the task is harder.”
In the European Union, the influences of MAGA politics are even more dangerous, because they favour the growth of sovereigntist parties in many European states, particularly in Italy, Germany and France, and undermine European solidarity. In some cases, individual parties (such as the AfD in Germany) or governments, as was the case with the Italian government, seek to gain favors not only from the U.S. government but also from its wealthy supporters, such as Elon Musk and large IT companies. The future of the European Union is in danger, because the EU is not a state, it has no defense. NATO’s armed forces are commanded by an American general. The only cohesive institution of the EU today is the Economic and Monetary Union, but in a world in which the great powers – the USA, Russia and China – could benefit substantially from its disintegration, as happened with the USSR, the forces of nationalism and anti-Europeanism are growing. They delude European citizens that full national sovereignty, without an overarching “European bureaucracy,” would guarantee a bright future.
In this issue of “Supranational Federalism” we publish the statement of Secretary of State Rubio and numerous positions in defence of the ICC. We also publish a profile of the WFM’s action, led in those years by William Pace, which shows how the world and European federalists (in fact the support of Emma Bonino, then a member of the European Commission, was important) acted in agreement. United federalists can win crucial battles for a world that is more respectful of human rights, more democratic and peaceful.
The history of the dramatic crisis of democracy in the years between the two world wars spurs us to seek ways to counter the malign action of the overbearing and anti-democratic rulers of our time. In the search for this path, it must be borne in mind that political action must include the objectives of defending human rights, democracy and the pacification of international relations. These three goals are interdependent and crucial: if one of these three goals were forgotten, the other two would become impossible. Human rights are the basis of the formation of the modern state, just think of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, the “Charter of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” of the French Revolution and the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” approved by the UN in 1948. In the modern state, which has developed in the national dimension, human rights have been guaranteed by democratic institutions because, as Rousseau argued, sovereignty belongs to the people: it is the citizens who decide how to be governed, therefore the government must be democratic. The modern state was born as a nation state, because the societies of those years typically had this dimension; a dimension that has proved inadequate only with the development of modern industry and the globalization of the economy. The nascent democratic state had as its first objective to guarantee the security of its citizens and it did so, internally, by prohibiting armed conflicts between citizens, whose security was guaranteed by police forces. However, the international community of armed sovereign states has generated bloody wars, up to the recent development of nuclear weapons that can annihilate entire continents. For this reason, today, domestic and international security have become rival public goods: the security of citizens should be guaranteed by their national government, but if a government of a rival great power threatens to annihilate the weaker state, the lives and freedoms of its citizens are in danger.
The campaign organized in the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, in an international situation in which it was still possible to have confidence in the ability of the United States and the other members of the United Nations Security Council to guarantee an – uncertain and inadequate – international stability, the creation of the ICC could be accepted as a missing piece of the UN. Today, the UN is paralyzed, the Security Council is composed of rival powers, whose primary objective is to create its own imperial area, as large as possible. Smaller, less armed countries can only decide which imperial area is convenient to belong to. Intermediate powers, such as Brazil, India, Australia, etc., attempted to increase their power by equipping themselves with nuclear weapons. Nuclear proliferation is unstoppable. The citizens of the world, whatever state they belong to, are more insecure than their grandparents and parents, because nuclear weapons today could unleash an atomic apocalypse.
European and world federalists must begin to discuss a common campaign to counter the claim of the great powers to decide the future of humanity by the force of arms. The future of humanity is also threatened by a climate crisis that national governments refuse to address with effective policies. That is why it is difficult today to organize a campaign with hopes of success to defend the ICC, which is only one piece within the framework of the United Nations. It is necessary to address the problem of a comprehensive reform of the United Nations in crisis. For example, why does the International Court of Justice not have the power to discuss, in the case of a dispute between nation states that could lead to war, the reasons put forward between rival governments to decide who is right and who is wrong and to pronounce a sentence, as civil courts do within nation states? Why do we have to accept an international monetary system based on a hegemonic currency, the dollar, when today the interdependence of the world economy would require a government of world currency, finance and trade in which all the countries of the world can participate? Why is the world’s wealth, particularly financial wealth, concentrated predominantly in a few rich countries, while a fairer management of the world’s wealth would make it possible to reduce international poverty considerably?
It is certainly not possible to deal with all these problems here. The purpose of these reflections is only to stimulate a debate between European and world federalists on the future of international politics and its institutions, first and foremost the United Nations. Democratic reform of the United Nations could solve many pressing problems. Among the policies supported by WFM is “Democracy without Border,” which advocates the creation of a World Parliament. This initiative is right, but it must be accompanied by other proposals to address all the problems – security, international justice, human rights and international democracy – that could unite democrats from all over the world in a common undertaking. Citizens and parties of every country and continent should join the federalists to save democracy everywhere, initiate international pacification among democratic countries, fight authoritarianism, and save the planet from the looming environmental crisis. The time has come to launch a campaign “For the democratic reform of the United Nations”.
