[JimBlackwood]

It is however appropriate for a group of nations to agree that a person who has committed crimes (according to them) is to be arrested upon entering one of their nations.

It’s not really something you can or cannot concede to, unless you are of the opinion America is the only sovereign state in the world.

[kragen]

Historically speaking, Westphalian sovereignty meant that there was no such thing as an "international criminal court", nor "war crimes". An ICC party such as France hypothetically arresting, for example, Netanyahu, for things that he did in Israel, would amount to a substantial erosion of Israel's sovereignty in the Westphalian sense. Under the Westphalian system, Israel's prince would have sole jurisdiction in such cases.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily tell us anything about whether it's good or bad. Eroding Westphalian sovereignty in such a sense is the whole point of the ICC, the EU, and arguably even the UN (though, of these three, only the ICC would have the particular result described in my previous paragraph). But it's worth pointing out that it's a major difference from centuries of historical precedents, not American exceptionalism.

[bertil]

The Westphalian sovereignty that you describe would refuse the authority of the Nuremberg trials.

[SllX]

Sure, but we’re going to interpret the arrest of a sitting or former POTUS, their direct subordinates or military personnel for the purposes of trying them in the ICC as a political act, not an act to maintain law and order in their home countries and its going to be much easier for us to justify invading and evacuating those people.

[JimBlackwood]

That is definitely true. I can imagine the ICC would fall shortly after (since I think enough member states will not execute the arrest order and so it’s existence does not do much)