U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention in Washington on Friday.
| AFP-JIJI
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Nov 14, 2026
Washington –U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered an aggressive and unrepentant challenge to international law in a speech on Friday, warning that the U.S. would never submit to the “sterile vision of radical judges or soulless global bureaucrats.”
His address singled out the International Criminal Court, as President Donald Trump and his administration have done many times over the course of his first and second terms. Rubio dismissed international law as an instrument that elites — whom he didn’t name — use to advance their own interests.
“If they’re foolish enough to try to enforce their paper decrees on Americans, our answer will probably be the same as the Roman general Pompey when he said to those who were trying to invoke their city’s charters against his legions, he said, ’Stop quoting laws to men with swords,’” Rubio said.
