US sanctions international court officials in ‘flagrant' move against independent judiciary

The Guardian

4 hours ago

The Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to hobble the international criminal court in what the ICC has denounced as a 'flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution'.
The US state department on Wednesday announced new sanctions on four ICC officials, including two judges and two prosecutors, saying they had been instrumental in efforts to prosecute Americans and Israelis. As a result of the sanctions, any assets that the targets hold in US jurisdictions are frozen.
The sanctions were immediately denounced by both the ICC and the United Nations, while Israel welcomed the move announced by the secretary of state Marco Rubio.
It is just the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken against the Hague-based court, the world's first international war crimes tribunal. The US, which is not a member of the court, has already imposed penalties on the ICC's former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who stepped aside in May pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, and four other tribunal judges.
The new penalties target ICC judges Kimberly Prost of Canada and Nicolas Guillou of France and prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal.
'These individuals are foreign persons who directly engaged in efforts by the international criminal court to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of either nation,' Rubio said.
He added that the administration would continue 'to take whatever actions we deem necessary to protect our troops, our sovereignty and our allies from the ICC's illegitimate and baseless actions'.
In a separate statement, the state department said Prost was sanctioned for a ruling to authorize an ICC investigation into personnel in Afghanistan, which was later dropped. Guillou was sanctioned for ruling to authorize the ICC's issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's former minister of defense, Yoav Gallant, related to Israel's war in Gaza.
France – whose president, Emmanuel Macron, was in Washington two days earlier – expressed 'dismay' over the action.
The sanctions are 'in contradiction to the principle of an independent judiciary', a foreign ministry spokesperson said in Paris.
Khan and Niang were penalized for continuing Karim Khan's investigation into Israel's actions in Gaza, including upholding the ICC's arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, according to the statement.
In response, the ICC issued a statement calling the sanctions 'a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution' and 'an affront against the Court's states parties, the rules-based international order and, above all, millions of innocent victims across the world'.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the ICC had the full support of the world body to carry out its work. The UN was 'very concerned' about the US continuing to target the international court, he said.
'We firmly believe that the ICC is a key pillar of international criminal justice, and we respect their work,' Dujarric said. 'The decision imposes severe impediments on the functioning of the office of the prosecutor in respect for all the situations that are currently before the court.'
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Netanyahu welcomed the US move.
'This is a firm measure against the mendacious smear campaign against the State of Israel and the IDF, and for truth and justice,' he said in a statement, using an acronym for the Israeli military.
Wednesday's move carries on a history of Trump administration actions against the ICC dating back to his first term in office. During Trump's first term, the US hit the ICC with sanctions, but those were rescinded by Joe Biden's administration in early 2021.
Danya Chaikel, the International Federation for Human Rights's representative to the ICC, said the escalation in US sanctions amounted to 'a continued attack on the rule of law and a blatant attempt to intimidate those pursuing accountability for atrocity crimes'.
She said the new sanctions were a 'defining test' for the ICC's 125 member states. 'Will they defend the court's independence and the rights of victims of international crimes, or allow intimidation by powerful states to dictate who deserves justice?' she added.