U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the imposition of new sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) president Tomoko Akane and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye on Tuesday. The move comes after intense criticism of the court by the Trump administration, which opposes the ICC’s attempts to charge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with war crimes as well as its claims to jurisdiction over American citizens.
Tuesday’s sanctions, which include travel bans, asset freezes, and restrictions on dealings with U.S. nationals, are the latest salvo in what the State Department characterizes as a “whole of government campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC.” Calling the court “corrupt and fatally politicized,” Rubio claimed the sanctioned officials had “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction.”
The ICC responded by saying that Washington’s decision would “undermine the rule of law.” “When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law,” the court asserted in a statement sent to reporters, “it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk.”
The State Department announced last month that it would seek to “dismantle” the ICC, promising to use “all the tools at our government’s disposal” and “work beside every ally” to accomplish its goal. And since June, five countries have announced their withdrawal from the ICC: Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Chad, in Africa’s Sahel region, as well as the new U.S.-aligned government of Venezuela.
President Trump has yet to comment on the new sanctions, although he has vociferously criticized the ICC in the past. During a July cabinet meeting, President Donald Trump said of the State Department’s campaign against the ICC “[Rubio] is not trying to defend me. He’s trying to defend Bibi and various other people.”(The ICC has charged Netanyahu with war crimes, including the use of starvation as a weapon against the civilian population of Gaza.)
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