Trump administration imposes sanctions on four ICC judges in unprecedented move
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court, an unprecedented retaliation over the war tribunal's issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Washington designated Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia, according to a statement from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"As ICC judges, these four individuals have actively engaged in the ICC's illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel. The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies," Rubio said.
The ICC slammed the move, saying it was an attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution that provides hope and justice to millions of victims of "unimaginable atrocities."
Both judges Bossa and Ibanez Carranza have been on the ICC bench since 2018. In 2020, they were involved in an appeals chamber decision that allowed the ICC prosecutor to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
Since 2021, the court had deprioritized the investigation into American troops in Afghanistan and focused on alleged crimes committed by the Afghan government and the Taliban forces.
ICC judges also issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict. Alapini Gansou and Hohler ruled to authorize the arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant, Rubio said.
The move deepens the administration's animosity toward the court. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the court's work on Afghanistan.
The measures also follow a January vote at the U.S. House of Representatives to punish the ICC in protest over its Netanyahu arrest warrant. The move underscored strong support among Trump's fellow Republicans for Israel's government.
The measures triggered an uproar among human-rights advocates. Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the punitive measures were a "flagrant attack on the rule of law at the same time as President Trump is working to undercut it at home."
Sanctions severely hamper individuals' abilities to carry out even routine financial transactions as any banks with ties to the United States, or that conduct transactions in dollars, are expected to have to comply with the restrictions.
But the Treasury Department also issued general licenses, including one allowing the wind-down of any existing transactions involving those targeted on Thursday until July 8, as long as any payment to them is made to a blocked, interest-bearing account located in the U.S.
The new sanctions come at a difficult time for the ICC, which is already reeling from earlier U.S. sanctions against its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who last month stepped aside temporarily amid a United Nations investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct.
The ICC, which was established in 2002, has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in member states or if a situation is referred by the U.N. Security Council. The United States, China, Russia and Israel are not members.
It has high-profile war crimes investigations under way into the Israel-Hamas conflict and Russia's war in Ukraine as well as in Sudan, Myanmar, the Philippines, Venezuela and Afghanistan.
The ICC has issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin on suspicion of deporting children from Ukraine, and for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza. Neither country is a member of the court and both deny the accusations and reject ICC jurisdiction.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Times
2 hours ago
- Japan Times
Appeals court allows Trump to keep national guard in L.A. with marines on the way
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump to maintain his deployment of national guard troops in Los Angeles amid protests over stepped-up immigration enforcement, temporarily pausing a lower court ruling that blocked the mobilization. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision does not mean that the court will ultimately agree with Trump, but it does leave command of the guard with the president for now. Earlier on Thursday, San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found that Trump's deployment of the guard was unlawful. Breyer's 36-page ruling had ordered the national guard to return to the control of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had brought the case. It was a short-lived victory for Newsom, as Breyer's order was paused about two and a half hours later. Asked for a comment, Newsom's press office referred to the governor's statement after the initial ruling, and noted that the appeals court put a temporary pause on the ruling but did not reverse it. "I'm confident, on the basis of the review of the 36 pages — absolutely it will stand," Newsom said of the district judge's order. The three-judge appeals court panel consisted of two judges appointed by Trump in his first term and one judge who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden. The panel said it would hold a hearing on Tuesday to consider the merits of Breyer's order. The court's action, called an administrative stay, gives the appeals judges additional time to consider the Trump administration's request to block Breyer's order while litigation in the case continues. Law enforcement officers guard Los Angeles City Hall during a protest against federal immigration sweeps in Los Angeles on Thursday. | REUTERS Trump summoned the national guard on Saturday in response to protests that had broken out over immigration raids, then on Monday ordered the U.S. marines to support the guard. A battalion of 700 U.S. marines is expected to arrive on Friday, marking an extraordinary use of military forces to support civilian police operations within the United States. The troops have stood guard at a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where many of the protests have taken place in a show of solidarity for immigrants detained inside. The protests so far have been mostly peaceful, punctuated by incidents of violence, and restricted to a few city blocks. The guard had also accompanied Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on operations to detain immigrants. In his ruling, Breyer wrote that the presence of the troops in the city was itself inflaming tensions with protesters — a contention made by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, among others — and depriving the state of the ability to use the guard for other purposes. Bass on Thursday called on ICE officers to stand down from the intensified series of raids that led to the protests, saying the local economy could be harmed as immigrants stayed home from work and school for fear of being snatched off the streets. "The peace that we need to have happen needs to begin in Washington, and we need to stop the raids," Bass told a news conference as supporters flanking her broke out in a chant of "Stop the raids." "Peace begins with ICE leaving Los Angeles," said Bass, who has imposed a nighttime curfew over one square mile (2.5 square km) of downtown L.A. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, who interrupted a news conference held by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, is removed from the venue in Los Angeles on Thursday. | REUTERS Bass spoke after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem pledged to "liberate" Los Angeles at a press conference that was dramatically interrupted when federal agents dragged Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla out of the room, forced him to the ground and handcuffed him. The court battle and press conference scuffle underscored the political polarization generated by Trump's hard-line approach to immigration enforcement and expansive use of presidential power. Trump is carrying out a campaign promise to deport immigrants, employing forceful tactics consistent with the norm-breaking political style that got him elected twice. Democrats have said the use of military force was unnecessary and an example of Trump's authoritarianism. Americans are divided over Trump's decision to activate the military. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 48% of respondents agreed with a statement that the president should "deploy the military to bring order to the streets" when protests turned violent, while 41% disagreed. Between the rulings, Newsom said the national guard would be redeployed to its previous tasks, including border security, preparing for wildfires and countering drug smuggling. But the Trump administration immediately appealed the judge's order, calling Breyer's ruling "an extraordinary intrusion on the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief." Trump justified the deployment of troops by characterizing the protests in Los Angeles as a "rebellion," but Breyer said in his temporary restraining order that the protests fell far short of that legal standard. "The Court is troubled by the implication inherent in Defendants' argument that protest against the federal government, a core civil liberty protected by the First Amendment, can justify a finding of rebellion," Breyer wrote. Trump has said if he had not ordered in the national guard the city would be in flames.
Japan Times
2 hours ago
- Japan Times
Trump's 'peacemaker' pledge takes big hit as Israel strikes Iran
On the campaign trail, U.S. President Donald Trump promised to end the world's hottest conflicts and usher in global peace, but nearly five months in, with Israel attacking Iran and bloodshed in Gaza and Ukraine unabated, those hopes are in shambles. U.S. ally Israel struck dozens of Iranian targets in a dramatic and multifaceted attack on Thursday that analysts say threatens to eventually spiral into an all-out regional war. The strikes appear to be a snub to Trump, who had repeatedly pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack Iran, though the president himself had threatened to bomb the Gulf nation if nuclear talks failed. "Trumpian diplomacy is one of the first casualties of these attacks," said Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser to Democratic President Barack Obama. "He has struggled to even get close to a ceasefire (in Gaza), let alone peace in any major conflict. Iran was looking the most promising — and Netanyahu just spoiled it." The White House, the Israeli embassy in Washington and Iran's U.N. mission did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The strikes are also a rebuke of Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy and close aide, who has been working intensively with Iranian negotiators toward a diplomatic solution to curb its nuclear program. Witkoff had sought unsuccessfully to persuade Netanyahu to remain patient while U.S.-Iran negotiations proceeded. Those talks have been deadlocked. Some Trump allies privately acknowledge that his diplomatic efforts had been faltering even before Israel's attack. His second term in office started with what seemed like a foreign policy win. Shortly before Trump's inauguration, Witkoff worked with aides to then-President Joe Biden to secure a long-sought ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants. But that accord fell apart in weeks. The U.S. has also made little discernible progress toward a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, whose conflict Trump vowed to end before even taking office. And his administration has taken no visible steps toward expanding the Abraham Accords, a landmark pact brokered in Trump's first term to forge diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab neighbors. As Trump has struggled to seal peace accords, foreign policy divisions have opened inside his own administration. Dozens of officials, from the National Security Council to the Pentagon to the State Department, have been jettisoned amid the infighting. Even before Israel's attack, several administration officials had begun to privately question if Witkoff, who lacks diplomatic experience but has emerged as Trump's top negotiator, had overstayed his welcome. As Israel's attacks unfolded on Thursday, some prominent Democrats expressed frustration that Trump had scrapped during his first term a deal between the United States, Iran and European allies forged during the Obama administration. Trump and Republicans had condemned that deal, saying it would not have kept a nuclear bomb out of Tehran's hands. Democrats fault Trump for not yet coming up with a credible alternative. "This is a disaster of Trump and Netanyahu's own making, and now the region risks spiraling toward a new, deadly conflict," Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said in a post on X. Whether Thursday's strikes will trigger a regional conflict remains unclear. Even so, analysts said, Tehran could see U.S. assets in the region as legitimate targets. For example, Tehran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen could resume their bombing campaign against ships transiting the Red Sea. Also unclear is Israel's ability to permanently impede Iran's nuclear program. Analysts doubt in particular the ability of Israel to destroy Iran's Fordow enrichment plant, which is buried deep underground. While Israel could probably do extensive damage, experts say a more lasting blow would require U.S. military assistance, which U.S. officials said was not provided. Another question mark is just how effectively Tehran can respond. Israel has indicated that it has targeted several Iranian leaders in the bombing campaign, which is expected to continue in coming days. All these factors will decide if the blow to Trump's aspirations to be seen as a global peacemaker will be a terminal one, or merely a setback. "If Israel is to be taken at its word that tonight's strikes were the first round in an all-out Israeli campaign against Iran's nuclear and missile programs, Iran's regime is now knee-deep within a potentially existential, life-or-death moment," said Charles Lister, head of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute. "That paints tonight's strikes in a whole new, unprecedented light and makes the risk of a major spiral of escalation far more real than what we've seen play out before."
Kyodo News
3 hours ago
- Kyodo News
Israel makes "preemptive" strikes on Iran nuclear, military targets
KYODO NEWS - 2 hours ago - 12:09 | All, World The Israeli military said Friday it has conducted strikes on "dozens of military targets," including nuclear facilities, in Iran. "Iran is closer than ever to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Iranian regime are an existential threat to the State of Israel and to the wider world," the Israel Defense Forces said on the X social media platform. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has declared a state of emergency for the entire country following Israel's "preemptive" attack on Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement that the military operation will "continue for as many days as it takes to remove" the threat. Iranian media reported that an explosion was heard in the central Iran city of Natanz, which hosts a uranium enrichment facility. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States was "not involved" in Israel's "unilateral action" against Iran. Related coverage: Israel fires warning shots at diplomats in West Bank, Japan protests Military spending in 2024 rises unprecedented 9.4% to $2.72 trillion Japan begins accepting Palestinians wounded in Gaza for treatment
