The U. S. imposed sanctions on Tuesday on the International Criminal Court’s president and a senior trial lawyer at the court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
The move is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against The Hague-based court, which was established in 2002 by the international community to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The U.S. is not a member of the court.
Rubio said in a statement that he was imposing sanctions on Tomoko Akane, a Japanese judge who is president of the International Criminal Court, and Abdoulaye Seye, a senior trial lawyer and a Senegalese national, under a Trump executive order last year authorizing sanctions against the court.
“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,” Rubio said.
The ICC condemned the move, saying in a statement that the measures undermine the rule of law.
“When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk,” the ICC said.
Seye is a senior trial attorney on the prosecution team that sought an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and has been nominated for election as an ICC judge.
Top ICC judge Akane warned in December that the U.S. sanctions will “rapidly undermine the court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardize its very existence”.
The U.S. imposed targeted sanctions last year on several ICC officials, including prosecutors and judges, citing ?the ICC’s ?arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant as well as a past probe into U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets the individuals may have and essentially cut them off from the U.S. financial system, with which almost all internationally operating banks have close ties.
US sanctions International Criminal Court president, senior lawyer
