U.S. sanctions ICC chairman, prosecutor in latest attack on court in The Hague
The United States has imposed sanctions against two more employees of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The Trump Administration sanctioned the court’s president, Japanese judge Tomoko Akane, and a member of the court’s team of prosecutors, Abdoulaye Seye from Senegal.
The sanctions mean that Akane and Seye can no longer access any U.S. bank accounts they may have. They can also no longer use the American financial system, which almost all internationally operating banks use.
"These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction," said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Reuters reported.
The U.S. does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC and does not want American soldiers or allies indicted for war crimes or crimes against humanity. The country has been actively hostile toward the ICC since it launched an investigation in 2016 into whether American soldiers committed war crimes in Afghanistan. The court abandoned that investigation in 2019. According to the judges, it couldn’t get off the ground due to a lack of cooperation.
The current series of sanctions and threats against the court stems from arrest warrants issued by the ICC in 2024 against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Secretary of Defense Yaov Gallant. The court wants to prosecute them for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Seye is a member of the team of prosecutors that issued the arrest warrants.
The U.S. and Israel are allies, and Trump is a firm supporter of Netanyahu. Earlier this year, the two countries jointly started a war with Iran that is still ongoing.
Trump also imposed sanctions against members of the ICC last year. Three ICC judges and three human rights organizations have separately sued the U.S. government to get these sanctions lifted. The judges called the sanctions “draconian” measures, purely intended to pressure the Court. The human rights organizations said that the sanctions impede the ICC’s ability to function and thereby undermine international legal order and ensure that the war crimes and other crimes against humanity go unpunished.
Last month, Trump’s Secretary of State, Rubio, said that the U.S. would dismantle the ICC “brick by brick.” Sources told Reuters that these attacks against the court are partly to head off any future attempts to hold Trump or his officials liable for American military actions abroad.