Does Czechia Still Have a Foreign Policy of Its Own? The National Interest in an Age of a New World Order

Politics can be conducted in two ways. It can be conceived as a deliberate sequence of interconnected steps, grounded in a clear understanding of the world, a realistic assessment of the international environment and a carefully formulated conception of the national interest. Or it can become a series of media episodes whose purpose is not to change reality, but merely to capture public attention for a moment. The first approach builds respect for a state. The second causes a state to cease being taken seriously.

Unfortunately, Czech politics is increasingly drifting towards the second model. Instead of focusing on the fundamental changes taking place in the world around us, it is retreating into domestic disputes over procedures, protocol and personal prestige. It is telling that while the president, the government and the Constitutional Court were arguing over participation in the NATO summit in Ankara, real foreign policy was being made somewhere else entirely.

In Washington, the administration of President Donald Trump took another step that may have long-term consequences for the shape of the international order. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the launch of a systematic campaign against the International Criminal Court, or ICC. This was not merely another emotionally charged statement from the US administration. It was a publicly declared intention to use sanctions, diplomatic pressure and other instruments to restrict the functioning of an institution of which Czechia is also a member.

Moments such as these distinguish states that genuinely shape foreign policy from those that merely react to it. This is not simply a dispute between the United States and the International Criminal Court. What we are witnessing is a clash between two different visions of the future international order. On one side stands an emphasis on state sovereignty and the limitation of the powers of international institutions. On the other stands the conviction that international law must be capable of holding even the most powerful actors accountable, and that certain values cannot be left exclusively to the discretion of individual states.

Czechia is not a detached observer of this dispute. It is a party to the Rome Statute, it has participated in building the system of international criminal justice, and at the same time it is one of the United States’ closest allies in Europe. For precisely this reason, it should be capable of formulating its own position, rather than merely reproducing the views of either Brussels or Washington. The almost complete silence of Czech foreign policy is therefore all the more striking.

Nor is this only about the International Criminal Court. The dispute over the ICC is merely one visible manifestation of a much deeper transformation of the international environment. The Trump administration is reassessing the relationship of the United States to international organisations, allied commitments and rules that America itself helped to shape for decades. The European Union is, on the one hand, attempting to preserve an institutional international order based on multilateral treaties and international organisations, while, on the other, strengthening the power of its own institutions at the expense of nation states. Czechia finds itself between these two rocks. It therefore cannot afford the luxury of silence.

Instead of a public debate about Czech national interests, however, we witnessed almost exclusively a piece of domestic political theatre. For days, public attention was consumed by arguments over who would represent Czechia at the NATO summit, whether Prime Minister Andrej Babiš had shaken hands with President Trump and what significance should be attributed to a photograph from a joint photo opportunity. The prime minister ultimately noted with satisfaction that he had shaken hands with “the most powerful man on the planet”. Yet foreign policy is not measured by the number of handshakes or photographs. It is measured by the ability to advance one’s own interests, place important issues on the agenda and engage in meaningful dialogue with key partners.

And let us be frank: Czechia was not among the countries setting the agenda. It presented no initiative that attracted the attention of its allies. No significant bilateral negotiations with major actors took place. Nor was any public position expressed on one of the most consequential changes in US foreign policy in recent years. Czechia settled for the role of an onlooker.

This is not a problem of one government or one summit. It is a symptom of a deeper condition affecting Czech foreign policy. A country the size of Czechia cannot earn respect through military strength or economic dominance. It can earn respect only by being intelligible, predictable and consistent in defending its own national interests. But that requires more than commenting on the actions of others. It requires a strategy of one’s own.

That is precisely why it is worth examining the dispute over the International Criminal Court in greater detail. This is not an academic debate among a handful of lawyers, nor a peripheral conflict between Washington and The Hague. It is one of the first major tests of the emerging international order. At the same time, it is a test of whether Czechia is still capable of formulating a foreign-policy position of its own, or whether it will settle for being a state that waits for others to decide on its behalf.

On 13 July 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal and simultaneously released a video statement through the Department of State. This was not the ordinary criticism of the International Criminal Court that the United States has voiced for more than two decades. Rubio announced a qualitatively new phase in US policy towards the ICC. According to his statement, the administration of President Donald Trump intends to weaken the Court systematically, perhaps even to dismantle it in practice, and to use diplomatic, economic and sanctions-based instruments to achieve that goal.

His language was exceptionally forceful.

“Both the ICC and its fellow travellers are waging war on our country — not with bullets or missiles, but through statutes, treaties and so-called international law.”

He also described the International Criminal Court as

“an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the United States.”

Rubio announced that the United States would continue expanding sanctions against ICC officials, intensify diplomatic pressure on states cooperating with the Court and use additional measures, including visa restrictions, to limit its activities. In other words, Washington is no longer seeking merely to protect US citizens from ICC jurisdiction. It is openly declaring its intention to restrict the functioning of the institution itself.

A policy formulated in these terms represents a significant shift. Throughout the existence of the ICC, the United States has primarily objected to the possibility that the Court might exercise jurisdiction over citizens of states that are not parties to the Rome Statute. Now, however, the US administration is for the first time openly discussing the systematic weakening of the Court as such. This is no longer merely a legal dispute about the scope of jurisdiction. It is a conflict over the very nature of the institutional international order.

The European Union responded the following day. European Commission spokesperson for foreign affairs Anouar El Anouni unequivocally reaffirmed support for the ICC and rejected the US argument.

“The European Union stands firmly behind the International Criminal Court.”

He also stressed that

“attacks or threats against the Court, its officials, personnel or those cooperating with it are unacceptable,”

and recalled that

“the ICC is not directed against states and does not constitute a threat to their sovereignty.”

This created a situation that directly concerns Czechia. We are a member state of the European Union, a party to the Rome Statute and an ally of the United States in NATO. Each of these relationships is of exceptional importance to our security and foreign policy. The question of what the Czech position actually is therefore becomes all the more urgent.

Yet it is precisely at this point that Czech foreign policy virtually disappeared from view. While Washington formulated a new strategy and Brussels publicly responded within hours, nothing was heard from Prague that would make it possible to understand how Czechia intends to defend its own interests in this new situation. But that is the fundamental task of any foreign policy: not mechanically to adopt the positions of allies, but to find a balance between allied loyalty, international law and one’s own national interest.

Such a debate is far from simple. It would be easy to dismiss the US criticism as an attack on international law or, conversely, to portray European support for the ICC as a manifestation of naive legal idealism. Neither interpretation, however, captures the essence of the problem.

To assess the legitimacy of both the American objections and the European response, we must first recall why the International Criminal Court was established, what mission states entrusted to it and what its actual role is.

The International Criminal Court was established by the Rome Statute of 1998, which entered into force on 1 July 2002. It became the first permanent international criminal court with global reach. Its task is to prosecute individuals responsible for the gravest crimes under international law: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and, under precisely defined conditions, the crime of aggression.

Its creation was not the result of an idealistic vision of world government or an attempt to weaken state sovereignty. It was a response to the tragic experiences of the twentieth century. The Nuremberg Tribunal after the Second World War, the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the experience of ethnic cleansing demonstrated that the international community was capable of responding to the worst atrocities only after they had already been committed. What was missing was a permanent institution able to act without the need to establish a special tribunal from scratch each time.

The ICC was intended to fill that gap. Unlike the Nuremberg Tribunal or the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, however, it was not established by the victorious powers or by a resolution of the United Nations Security Council. It is an independent international organisation founded by a multilateral treaty that states join voluntarily. This fact is crucial to understanding the present dispute. Almost all the legal and political arguments now advanced by both Washington and Brussels flow from it.

Since its establishment, the International Criminal Court has been at the centre of one of the most fundamental debates in contemporary international law. In reality, however, the dispute is not merely about the functioning of one international institution. Behind it lies a much deeper question: what limits should be placed on state sovereignty in an era of growing international interdependence, and are there crimes whose prosecution can no longer depend solely on the will of individual states?

This is not a conflict between supporters of law and its opponents. It is a clash between two legitimate legal conceptions, each based on a different understanding of the international order.

The first, generally described as universalist, is based on the conviction that certain crimes, by their very nature, threaten the international community as a whole. Genocide, the systematic extermination of civilian populations and large-scale war crimes are not merely internal matters for individual states. According to scholars such as Antonio Cassese, M. Cherif Bassiouni and William Schabas, the international community must possess an institution capable of intervening when national courts fail or when the state itself protects the perpetrators.

The second conception, generally described as sovereignty-based or sovereigntist, does not regard protection against the gravest crimes as any less important. It does, however, emphasise a different value: state sovereignty as a foundational principle of international law. Its representatives, including Curtis Bradley, Jack Goldsmith and John Bolton, point out that criminal jurisdiction is one of the most significant attributes of state authority and that no international treaty can impose obligations on states that have not consented to it.

This is the core of the present dispute between the United States and the ICC.

The most controversial issue is not the prosecution of citizens of states that have ratified the Rome Statute. In such cases, the legal basis is relatively clear. The real problem arises when the ICC claims jurisdiction over citizens of states that are not parties to the Statute.

Supporters of the Court argue that a state may entrust the exercise of its own criminal jurisdiction to an international institution. If, for example, an offence is committed on the territory of a state party, that state may transfer the exercise of its jurisdiction to the ICC. Under this interpretation, the Court does not exercise an independent universal jurisdiction. It merely exercises the jurisdiction voluntarily delegated to it by the state party.

Opponents argue that such an interpretation effectively circumvents one of the basic principles of international treaty law: pacta tertiis nec nocent nec prosunt. Under this principle, treaties may neither impose obligations nor confer rights upon states that are not parties to them. If Germany or Czechia ratifies the Rome Statute, critics argue, this cannot create jurisdiction over citizens of the United States, Russia, China or India without the consent of those states.

This dispute remains unresolved. International law has not yet produced an authoritative answer that enjoys universal acceptance. Neither conception can therefore simply be dismissed as legally incorrect. The debate continues among judges and leading experts in international criminal law.

For this reason, it would be a mistake to reject the American arguments merely as evidence of contempt for international law. A substantial part of the US criticism is rooted in a legitimate legal debate that has continued since the adoption of the Rome Statute.

Alongside these legal objections, there is also extensive criticism of the practical functioning of the Court. Critics point to the risk of politicised prosecutions, the selective exercise of jurisdiction and the fact that the ICC has no enforcement arm of its own and is entirely dependent on the cooperation of states when arresting suspects. The Court may therefore act decisively against states willing to cooperate, while its decisions concerning powers with extensive diplomatic or military capabilities frequently have little practical effect.

Another frequently cited concern is that several of the world’s most powerful states — the United States, China, Russia and India — are not parties to the Rome Statute. Critics conclude that this creates an asymmetric system in which small and medium-sized states are in practice more exposed to the Court’s jurisdiction than countries possessing global power.

It would, however, be equally mistaken to conclude from these objections that the ICC itself serves no purpose. Even most leading European defenders of the Court do not embrace an unlimited cosmopolitan conception of international criminal justice. The prevailing European legal doctrine, represented by scholars such as Carsten Stahn, Kai Ambos and Claus Kreß, is based on a considerably more restrained compromise.

Its foundation is the principle of complementarity. The International Criminal Court is not intended to replace national judiciaries or to create a form of global criminal jurisdiction. On the contrary, primary responsibility for investigating and punishing the gravest crimes continues to rest with individual states. The ICC may intervene only when a state is genuinely unable or unwilling to conduct a proper criminal investigation or prosecution. This is why it is commonly described as a court of last resort.

From this perspective, the long-standing position of the United States becomes easier to understand. Washington has never rejected the idea of international criminal justice as such. On the contrary, the United States was one of the principal driving forces behind the Nuremberg Tribunal and the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Its objections have focused primarily on the possibility that a permanent international court might exercise jurisdiction over citizens of states that have not themselves chosen to join it. The American argument is grounded in the protection of state sovereignty, constitutional principles and concerns about politically motivated proceedings against members of the armed forces or senior state officials.

This is, however, precisely where the present policy of the Trump administration marks a fundamental turning point.

Whereas for more than two decades the United States primarily sought to protect its own jurisdiction, it is now openly declaring the objective of systematically restricting the functioning of the International Criminal Court itself. The difference is significant. Defending one’s sovereignty is a legitimate part of the international legal debate. Actively attempting to weaken an institution established by a valid multilateral treaty is a qualitatively different step. The dispute is thus moving beyond the interpretation of law and becoming a conflict over the nature of the future international order.

At this point, the debate about the ICC ceases to be exclusively a question of international criminal law. It becomes a matter of foreign policy. And this is precisely where Czechia must answer a question more important than the jurisdictional dispute itself: how does it intend, as a medium-sized European state, to defend its national interests at a time when the very rules of the international system are changing?

What This Means for Czechia

The dispute over the International Criminal Court is not merely a legal discussion among specialists in international law, nor just another conflict between Washington and Brussels. In reality, it is one of the first major tests of the newly emerging international order. Every state will have to decide what balance it seeks between the protection of state sovereignty, support for international institutions and the preservation of strong allied relationships.

For Czechia, this question is exceptionally important. We are not a global power capable of creating rules on our own, but neither are we an insignificant object of decisions made by others. Our security rests on the transatlantic alliance, our economic prosperity depends on an open international environment, and our position in the world also relies on the existence of rules that, at least to some extent, protect smaller states from purely power-based politics.

For precisely this reason, Czechia can afford neither an uncritical adoption of European Union positions nor an automatic reproduction of American views. Our task is not to choose between Washington and Brussels as though they were two opposing camps. Our task is to defend our own national interests within the political space of which we are a part.

The American objections to the International Criminal Court deserve serious consideration. The limits of international criminal jurisdiction, the protection of state sovereignty and the accountability of international institutions are not merely American concerns. They are legitimate legal and political questions that have been debated since the creation of the ICC.

At the same time, however, there is a fundamental difference between defending one’s own sovereignty and actively attempting to weaken an institution established under a valid multilateral treaty. Czechia has no interest in international law becoming an instrument of political pressure. But neither does it have an interest in a world in which the gravest international crimes remain without an effective response merely because the perpetrators come from states possessing sufficient political or military power.

A rational Czech position can therefore consist neither in an uncritical defence of every action taken by the ICC nor in support for its systematic weakening. The Czech national interest lies in preserving the International Criminal Court as a court of last resort, intervening where national judicial systems fail, while at the same time insisting rigorously on the principle of complementarity, clearly defined limits to its powers and a restrained exercise of jurisdiction.

Such an approach corresponds to Czechia’s position in the world. A state of our size needs international rules because rules, to some extent, counterbalance the power advantage of larger states. At the same time, it needs those rules to be predictable, legitimate and confined to the powers that states have voluntarily entrusted to international institutions.

The problem is that virtually no such debate is taking place in Czechia.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš emphasised that he had shaken hands with President Donald Trump. Meeting the US president is, of course, not without significance. The problem is that foreign policy is not measured by a momentary greeting or a shared photograph. It is measured by whether a state can define its interests at decisive moments, place important issues on the agenda and secure support for them among its allies.

This is precisely the weakness of current Czech policy. The issue is not that Czechia fails to achieve every one of its demands. That would be unrealistic even for much larger states. The problem arises when it is not clear what demands the country actually wishes to advance.

No state can be respected if it does not itself know what it is defending. Diplomacy is not a competition in the number of photographs taken with world leaders or in symbolic gestures. It is the ability to connect one’s own interests with a realistic assessment of the international situation.

Czechia does not need a louder foreign policy. It needs a more confident one. It does not need to oppose every major power, but it must be capable of expressing its own position even when that position touches upon the interests of its strongest allies.

We must be capable of telling the United States that its security importance to Czechia is irreplaceable, but that an allied relationship does not require the abandonment of independent judgement. Equally, we must be capable of telling our European partners that support for international law must not mean relinquishing the principle of state sovereignty.

Small and medium-sized states do not change the international order through brute strength. They can, however, influence it through their ability to think strategically, define their interests and act in time. Czechia cannot afford to remain merely the object of decisions made by others.

The real question, therefore, is not only what position we adopt towards the International Criminal Court. The real question is whether we still possess a foreign policy of our own, grounded in a clear understanding of what we want to protect and what we seek to achieve.

That is why the Czech government should speak clearly. Not only about the ICC, but about Czechia’s place in a world that is changing fundamentally before our eyes.