The International Criminal Court condemned on Wednesday the latest US sanctions against two of its officials, accusing Washington of undermining the independence of the court and the rule of law more generally.
The US State Department announced on Tuesday that it had imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane of Japan and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal for “destabilizing activities” in relation to the court. Their assets in the United States or transiting through the country were frozen.
“The measures taken by the United States take a direct toll on the independence of the judiciary since penalizing judges and prosecutors for the exercise of their functions constitutes an attack on the rule of law system,” the ICC said in a statement.
“They further entail unacceptable risks for the separation of powers and the sovereignty of states,” it added. “The ICC will continue to fulfill its mandate without fear or favor.”
The latest sanctions are the most recent in a campaign by the Trump administration to target staff of the ICC, an independent institution based in The Hague that prosecutes genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. They add to sanctions imposed on 9 of the 18 judges of the ICC and both deputy prosecutors, as well as a former chief prosecutor and one other employee.
The campaign was triggered by the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes relating to the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Marco Rubio has accused the ICC of “judicial harassment” of Israel and has pledged to rally the 125 states that ratified the Rome Statute to dissolve the court.
Neither the United States nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, and the US has consistently opposed its jurisdiction over nationals of states not party to it.
The fallout from the sanctions has seen both regional allies of the US – Chad and Venezuela – threatening to withdraw from the ICC, and the US itself poised to follow.
The court has accused the United States of attempting to “undermine the legitimacy” of the ICC, and warned that the sanctions campaign could jeopardize its work on several sensitive cases.
“The independence of the court is at risk whenever its judges or prosecutors are subjected to political pressure,” warned the International Criminal Court.
