The Hague Invasion Act is John Kiriakou’s name for the American statute that anticipates a citizen or ally being held by the International Criminal Court.
He introduces it as the answer to a question he has just posed — what would actually happen if Benjamin Netanyahu’s aircraft were forced down in a Rome Statute signatory state and its government were obliged by treaty to arrest him. “Well, Congress has already thought about what would happen. During the Obama administration, Congress passed something known as the Hague Invasion Act, which authorizes the president to call out the US military to invade the Netherlands.”[1]
Kiriakou repeats the operative words for effect and then states the object of the operation: “To invade the Netherlands and to take over the International Criminal Court to then free Benjamin Netanyahu and let him run back to Israel.” His gloss is a single sentence: “This is how crazy the world has gotten.”[2]
The scenario, restated
Kiriakou returned to the statute in August 2026 with the triggering scenario spelled out in more detail. The risk is not that a signatory state would seek Netanyahu out, but that an ordinary aviation event would put him on its territory: a medical emergency on a flight, or engine trouble forcing a landing in Italy, Austria, Greece, Spain or Ireland — at which point those governments are “compelled by treaty to arrest him and to turn him over to the ICC.” Congress, he says, “has already thought about what would happen.”[3][4]