U.S. President Donald Trump has approved economic and travel sanctions aimed at individuals involved in International Criminal Court investigations of U.S. citizens or allies like Israel, eliciting both condemnation and some praise internationally.
The ICC is a permanent court that prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and acts of aggression against member states’ territories or by their nationals.
Trump’s action on Thursday coincided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington; the ICC is seeking Netanyahu in connection with the Gaza war.
On Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other EU leaders stated that Trump was incorrect in imposing sanctions on the ICC.
Scholz stated, “Sanctions are not the right tool.” “They put at risk an institution meant to guarantee that the world’s dictators cannot merely persecute individuals and initiate wars, which is crucial.”
Antonio Costa, who presides over the European Council of EU leaders, stated on the social media platform Bluesky that sanctioning the ICC “undermines the international criminal justice system as a whole”.
The Netherlands, which hosts the court located in The Hague, also expressed regret regarding the sanctions.
The ICC condemned the sanctions, asserting that it “stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, in all situations before it.”
The sanctions imposed by the U.S. involve freezing any assets located in the U.S. belonging to designated individuals, as well as prohibiting them and their families from traveling to the United States.
The speed of the U.S. announcement regarding the names of sanctioned individuals was uncertain. In 2020, during Trump’s first term, Washington sanctioned then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her senior assistants due to the ICC’s probe into purported war crimes committed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The ICC does not include the United States, China, Russia, and Israel as members.
After Senate Democrats in the U.S. thwarted a Republican initiative to establish a sanctions regime aimed at the war crimes court through legislation, Trump endorsed an executive order.
The court has taken measures to shield staff from possible U.S. sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance, as it braced for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, sources told Reuters last month.
In December, the court’s president, Judge Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would “rapidly undermine the court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardize its very existence”.
Russia has also taken aim at the court. In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia has banned entry to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and placed him and two ICC judges on its wanted list.
