The following is a guest-post by Maxine Rubin on the relationship between Germany and the International Criminal Court. Maxine is a Research Fellow and the Editor of Africa Spectrum, at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. She has a PhD from the University of Cape Town.

How does a state recover its international image after perpetrating a genocide? Germany’s approach to this quagmire has been to commit to the rule of law and to international law. In line with this, Germany played a central role in the negotiations to create the International Criminal Court during the 1990s. Since the ICC began operations in 2002, Germany has been the second highest financial contributor and a consistent supporter of the Court. Given this, and the dire need for unequivocal commitment to a rules-based order, why is Berlin’s support for the ICC faltering when the Court needs it most?

Support from the ICC’s members is more important than ever. The Court faces extensive sanctions from the US, as well as withdrawals from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Hungary. In many ways, Germany presents itself as a consistent supporter of the ICC. In the past few months, Berlin noted its regret regarding the US sanctions on the Court and played a central role in the amendments proposed to strengthen the ICC’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression at the ICC’s recent Review Conference. Germany provides roughly 13% of the Court’s annual budget and, until now, there has always been a German judge on the bench. Supporting the ICC is a manifestation of Germany’s commitment to the rule of law – a commitment that shapes Germany’s efforts to redress the atrocities it committed during WWII and the Holocaust.

Germany also made another commitment in the aftermath of the Holocaust: to ensure the security of the state of Israel. Protecting Israel’s security is considered Germany’s Staatsräson (reason of state or raison d’etat), as former Chancellor Olaf Scholtz stated in the wake of the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israelis by Hamas militants: “our responsibility that grew out of the Holocaust makes it our everlasting task to stand up for the existence and security of the State of Israel.” Consequently, when the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor announced the arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu roughly in 2024, Berlin confronted a dilemma between its post-WWII commitments. 

This is not the first time an ICC State Party has found itself juggling competing international commitments and foreign policy goals. For example, many African States Parties were chastised for allowing former Sudanese President al-Bashir to visit their territories despite the pending arrest warrants for him issued by the ICC, despite the African Union’s decision that its members should not cooperate with the warrant. It was clear to ICC supporters, and the Court itself, that States Parties were expected to uphold their Rome Statuteobligations.

Now, the German government faces a litmus test for the depth of its commitment to the ICC. And so far, it has failed. On the eve of his election, Chancellor Friedrich Merz assured Netanyahu that he would be free to “visit Germany and […] leave again without being arrested in Germany.” Some might dismiss this as inconsequential since there are no plans for a visit from Netanyahu. On the contrary, however, this is a blow to the ICC from one of its most important supporters. It sends a clear message that political alliances are considered superior to international commitments – pulling at another the unravelling thread of the global order. 

There are other consequences too. In an interview with an African diplomat accredited to the ICC, the diplomat observed: “the West shoots itself in the foot when it extends an olive branch to Israel whilst cracking the whip at Russia.” The uneven implementation of the accountability principle, therefore, contributes to divisions among States Parties within the ICC, and to perceptions that western states support the Court when it suits their political agenda.

Some might defend Berlin’s stance toward Israel and point to its shift in position in recent months. In May 2025, Berlin denounced the blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza. At a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that more humanitarian aid for Gaza was “not only a commandment of humanity, it is also applicable international law.” He also called the construction of new Israeli settlements in the West Bank “contrary to international law,” saying “it literally obstructs the […] two-state solution.” 

Concerns about Israeli policies toward Palestinian Territories that threaten a two-state solution have driven other changes in Berlin’s relationship with Israel. Chancellor Merz stated that Berlin would “authorise no military equipment exports that can be used in the Gaza Strip” mere hours after Israel announced its plans to take over Gaza City on 8 August 2025. This announcement is notable considering that Germany is a major weapons supplier to Israel. 

Between 2019 and 2023, it supplied 30% of Israel’s arms imports. Research suggests that export permits increased in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, and that about 47% of Israeli weapons imports in 2023 came from Germany. Merz’s announcement brought to the fore divisions among the conservative camp in his ruling coalition. Still, the halting of the delivery of weapons to Israel is too little too late for many watching the horrors unfold in Gaza, let alone the West Bank. 

Despite these recent changes, which suggest there are some limits to Berlin’s support for Israel, Germany’s change in position does not appear to extend to the ICC. The Merz government has yet to revisit its comments regarding the pending arrest warrant for Netanyahu. In fact, the official record regarding the arrest warrants leaves much to be desired.

The German Federal Foreign Office criticised the simultaneous issuance of arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli leaders by the ICC’s Prosecutor as “an incorrect implication of equivalence.” Berlin has consistently defended Israel’s war in Gaza as “absolutely justified” self-defence. This is a red herring argument: the arrest warrants are not for instigating a war (i.e. a crime of aggression). Rather, they indicate that the way that Israel has responded to Hamas’s atrocities violated international law and the Rome Statute’s prohibitions on war crimes and crimes against humanity. A straightforward counterargument to Berlin’s claims of ‘false equivalence’ following the ICC Prosecutor’s arrest warrants announcement is simple: the law applies equally to all.

When reflecting on the Gaza war, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has repeated that Hamas is ultimately to blame for any escalations – including the Israeli strikes in Qatar in September 2025 – since Israel is retaliating against the Hamas-led 7 October attacks. Such arguments distract from the issue at hand: is Israel’s conduct consistent with international humanitarian and criminal law? Genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity are prohibited and unlawful, regardless of the horrors or atrocities they are waged in response to. Two wrongs under international criminal law can never make a right; rather any and all should be properly and independently investigated, as the ICC has done. Being an advocate of a rules-based order demands that Germany not excuse the actions of its ally as being part of a just war.

The German government’s silence regarding the arrest warrants and its obligations to the ICC is damning. Alongside other rhetoric from the German government, it suggests that Berlin’s concerns about Israeli conduct in Gaza are opportunistic, rather than principled. It also compounds the damage to the ICC caused by Merz’s assurance that any warrant for Netanyahu would be flouted. The ICC needs its supporters to speak up now more than ever. The international legal order requires protection, and states must be steadfast: the law matters even in times of war. The German government needs to publicly profess its intent to uphold all its obligations to the ICC – including the arrest warrant for Netanyahu.