The United States has imposed sanctions on the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a senior prosecutor. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the move Tuesday.
This latest step is part of a continuing series of attacks by the Trump administration on the international court, based in The Hague, Netherlands.
The ICC was established in 2002 by the international community to try war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. The United States, however, is not a member of the court.
Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen, whose country hosts the court, wrote on social media platform X that the Netherlands disagrees with the US sanctions. He also said he had invited Tomoko Akane to discuss the Netherlands’ continued support for the court.
Berendsen further wrote: “International courts and tribunals must have the opportunity to carry out their mandates independently.”
The ICC’s top judge, Tomoko Akane, warned as early as last December that sanctions imposed by the United States “would quickly paralyze the court’s operations across all situations and cases, and would endanger its very existence.”
The United States had previously expressed anger over an investigation into US troops in Afghanistan and ICC arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Washington subsequently imposed sanctions on several court officials, prosecutors, and judges last year.
Under the new sanctions, the individuals’ assets in the United States will be frozen. All their transactions with the US financial system, with which nearly every bank in the world maintains close ties, will also be halted. Alongside the new sanctions, the US Treasury Department issued a general license Tuesday, giving until September 17 to wind down transactions connected to Tomoko Akane and Abdulaye Sey.
In June this year, three ICC judges filed a lawsuit against Trump and his administration over the sanctions imposed last year, calling the move unlawful.
Human rights organizations have also said, in two separate lawsuits, that the US campaign violates the constitutional rights of organizations working with the ICC to ensure justice for atrocities committed around the world.
Marco Rubio said last month that the US administration would intensify its efforts to disrupt the ICC’s operations. As part of that, he said, a diplomatic campaign would also be waged to persuade other countries to leave the organization. At least five countries have already responded to that US appeal.
Rubio argues that the court poses a major threat to officials implementing President Trump’s strict immigration policies, teams conducting operations against vessels suspected of carrying drugs, and other US military personnel.
Trump himself, however, has said the goal of this campaign is not to protect himself from prosecution, but to protect Benjamin Netanyahu and others.
The United States has never been a member of the court. The ICC exercises jurisdiction only when a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocities committed on its own soil.
However, the ICC’s statute also states that the court has the power to prosecute a national of a non-member state if that person commits an atrocity crime on the territory of a member state.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report