[bawolff]

> 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.

[marcus_holmes]

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.

[bawolff]

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]