The US imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) president and a senior trial lawyer at the court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
The move is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against The Hague-based court, which was established in 2002 by the international community to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
The US is not a member of the court. Rubio said in a statement that he was imposing sanctions on Tomoko Akane, a Japanese judge who is president of the International Criminal Court, and Abdoulaye Seye, a senior trial lawyer and a Senegalese national, under a Trump executive order last year authorising sanctions against the court. “These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction,” Rubio said.
The US imposed targeted sanctions last year on several ICC officials, including prosecutors and judges, citing the ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant as well as a past probe into US troops in Afghanistan.
The sanctions freeze any US assets the individuals may have and essentially cut them off from the US financial system, with which almost all internationally operating banks have close ties.
Three International Criminal Court judges sued Trump and his administration in June over the sanctions, arguing that the measures were unlawful.
The Treasury also issued a general licence yesterday authorising the wind-down of transactions involving Akane through September 17. Rubio said last month that the administration would step up efforts to undermine the ICC, including a diplomatic campaign aimed at persuading other countries to quit the institution. Rubio argued that the court posed a threat to US personnel carrying out US President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies or strikes on boats accused of carrying drugs, as well as other US service members.
Trump has said that the campaign was aimed at defending Netanyahu and others from prosecution, rather than Trump himself.
The US has never been a member of the court. The ICC asserts jurisdiction only if a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocities itself.
However, the ICC statute also gives the court the power to prosecute atrocity crimes committed on the territory of member states by nationals of non-member states.
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