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’.
According to The Guardian, The US state department 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 the ICC judges Kimberly Prost of Canada and Nicolas Guillou of France and prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal.
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”.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin 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.
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