Can institutions survive narrative warfare?

 The ICC's crisis shows how legal disputes are now fought through evidence, politics and public narratives long before institutions reach their final decisions.

Courts decide facts, narratives decide what people remember. Increasingly, the two unfold at the same time.

The crisis surrounding International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan shows how major legal disputes no longer play out only through evidence and procedure.

They also unfold through diplomatic attacks, media coverage and public perception.

That is the reality of what might best be described as narrative warfare.

Narrative warfare does not alter the evidence. It changes the environment in which people receive and interpret that evidence.

Lawyers argue through legal submissions, politicians seek to influence opinion through diplomacy while journalists test competing claims.

Television gives institutional disputes a human face and social media amplifies every twist in real time.

The ICC now finds itself fighting on all those fronts.

It is an uncomfortable position for an institution created to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.

It exists to establish criminal responsibility through evidence and law, not to compete in a battle over public narratives.

The sexual misconduct allegations against Khan, made by a Malaysian lawyer who worked as his special assistant, have become the latest example of that challenge. Khan has consistently denied the allegations.

The larger question now stretches well beyond either individual.

Can an institution created to determine facts still persuade the world that facts — not narratives — remain the foundation of justice?

Three arenas, one dispute

The dispute surrounding Khan is now unfolding in three arenas.

The first is the investigative process, where witnesses are interviewed, documents examined and evidence tested against established legal standards.

The second is the Assembly of States Parties, the ICC’s governing body of 125 member states, which will decide whether Khan should remain in office under the court’s disciplinary framework.

The third is the court of public opinion, where television interviews, leaked reports, opinion columns, diplomatic statements and social media increasingly shape how the case is perceived before governments complete their deliberations.

Each arena serves a different purpose and applies different standards. Yet each influences the others, making the ICC’s current crisis unlike almost any disciplinary case it has previously faced.

When stories become part of the process

The latest chapter came when Sarah, the Malaysian lawyer at the centre of the allegations, abandoned her anonymity to speak publicly to CNN just days before member states gather in New York to vote on Khan’s future.

Her interview introduced no new evidence. Her account had already formed part of the evidential record examined during the disciplinary process.

What changed was the public environment surrounding that evidence.

For the first time, audiences around the world heard directly from the complainant rather than learning about her through leaked reports, confidential findings or official summaries. Her interview immediately became part of the wider conversation ahead of the vote.

Khan has taken a different path.

Bound by institutional confidentiality and legal advice, he has largely spoken through his lawyers, who argue the allegations received a thorough examination and that an independent judicial panel unanimously concluded the evidence did not establish misconduct.

Neither development determines whether the allegations are true.

Both illustrate how institutional disputes increasingly unfold through competing narratives alongside formal legal processes.

When geopolitics enters the picture

The story became more complicated because it unfolded alongside one of the ICC’s most politically sensitive investigations.

After Khan sought arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged crimes committed during the Gaza conflict, political pressure on the court intensified dramatically.

A group of Republican senators warned him: “Target Israel and we will target you.”

Khan proceeded anyway. Sanctions followed.

The Trump administration later expanded measures against the court, while secretary of state Marco Rubio pledged to dismantle what he described as a threat to American sovereignty.

This week, President Donald Trump declared Netanyahu would “not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form” should he visit New York despite the court’s outstanding warrant.

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani had earlier suggested his administration would consider enforcing it if Netanyahu attended the United Nations General Assembly.

The exchange was never about the evidence before the court. It was about whether the court’s authority should be recognised at all.

Israel has dismissed the ICC as a “kangaroo court”, while Washington continues to weaken the institution through sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

None of this establishes any connection between those geopolitical developments and Sarah’s allegations.

Sarah has rejected suggestions that she acted on behalf of any government or intelligence agency, while investigators found no evidence supporting such claims.

Politics, however, does not have to create a complaint to influence the environment in which that complaint is judged. When major events collide, they inevitably become intertwined in public debate. The evidence may remain the same. The surrounding narrative rarely does.

Can institutions keep control of their own story?

That may be the deeper challenge confronting international justice.

Courts derive their authority from evidence, procedure and independence, while public confidence depends on the belief that institutions reach decisions free from political influence.

Yet institutions no longer control the space in which those decisions are assessed.

Governments seek to influence opinion through diplomacy, lawyers through legal submissions, journalists through reporting and campaign groups through public advocacy.

Television brings emotion to legal disputes by placing the people behind the headlines before a global audience, while social media magnifies every twist.

Investigations that span months or years can quickly be distilled into competing narratives, each claiming to tell the definitive story long before institutions complete their work.

The ICC must now navigate all those worlds simultaneously.

Its decision on Khan will matter enormously, but the larger lesson reaches far beyond one prosecutor or one complainant.

Institutions today are expected not only to investigate fairly, but also to withstand relentless competition over how their work is interpreted, presented and remembered.

The ICC was created to determine facts. It now faces an equally demanding task: defending those facts in a world where narratives often travel faster than evidence.

Whether it can do both may become one of the defining tests of international justice in the twenty-first century. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.