The ICC has expressed concern over the Trump administration’s marketing campaign to encourage nations to withdraw from the courtroom, asserting that such nations risked undermining the collective pursuit of justice.
The Worldwide Legal Courtroom (ICC) has lashed out at the US after the Trump administration added its chief and considered one of its senior attorneys to an inventory of sanctioned people, calling the transfer a “flagrant assault” on the courtroom’s independence.
The ICC’s response on Wednesday got here in response to the US imposing sanctions on ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, as a part of its marketing campaign towards what it calls a “corrupt and fatally politicised physique”.
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Akane, a Japanese decide, has served because the ICC’s president since her election in March 2024. Seye is a Senegalese lawyer on the courtroom.
“These sanctions are a flagrant assault towards the independence of an neutral judicial establishment,” The Hague-based courtroom mentioned in an announcement.
“Such measures concentrating on judges, prosecutors and workers … undermine the rule of regulation.”
Washington’s newest transfer follows sanctions it imposed on a number of ICC officers, largely in response to the courtroom’s investigations involving US ally Israel.
Japan additionally objected to the sanctions, saying it has “persistently supported the ICC … in its efforts to prosecute and punish essentially the most critical crimes of concern to the worldwide neighborhood and to uphold the rule of regulation,” Ministry of Overseas Affairs press secretary Toshihiro Kitamura mentioned in an announcement.
Japan is the ICC’s greatest funder and a detailed US ally.
The European Union additionally threw its help behind Akane.
In twin statements on social media, European Fee chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council head Antonio Costa mentioned they “stand firmly” with Akane and prime officers, who “should have the ability to act independently and with out exterior stress”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier mentioned in an announcement, with out offering examples, that the sanctioned “people have instantly engaged in efforts by the ICC to analyze, arrest, detain, or prosecute officers whose authorities has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”.
The ICC responded in an announcement on Tuesday, saying, “When judicial actors are threatened for making use of the regulation, it’s the worldwide authorized order itself that’s positioned in danger.”
Established in 2002, the ICC prosecutes people accused of the gravest atrocities and acts as a final resort when nations wouldn’t have ample authorized techniques to make sure accountability.
The Trump administration has already imposed sanctions towards officers of the ICC, which issued in 2024 an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the genocidal battle in Gaza.
The measures bar them from coming into the US and from finishing up transactions within the US monetary system.
Final month, Washington launched a serious diplomatic offensive towards the ICC, accusing it of “threatening” US residents and calling on companions to withdraw from the physique – a transfer already introduced by Chad and Venezuela.
The ICC expressed concern over these withdrawals, asserting that such nations risked undermining the collective pursuit of justice.
The US signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC however by no means ratified the treaty. Israel and Russia will not be ICC members both.
Final week, 4 human rights teams, together with Human Rights Watch, sued US President Donald Trump in a New York courtroom over his sanctions concentrating on the ICC, saying the measures block victims of battle crimes from pursuing justice.
In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the battle in Ukraine, prompting Moscow to challenge its personal arrest warrants for senior courtroom officers, together with Akane.
