\n Spain’s Pedro Sanchez called on the EU to shield ICC judges from US sanctions over Gaza investigations, warning they threaten the international justice system. [Getty]<\/p>\n
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez <\/a>has urged the European Commission to activate legal protections for International Criminal Court (ICC) officials targeted by US sanctions over investigations linked to Gaza war crimes.<\/a><\/p>\n In a post on X<\/a> on Tuesday, Sanchez said: “Spain does not look the other way. Sanctioning those who defend international justice puts the entire human rights system at risk.”<\/p>\n “The EU cannot remain idle in the face of this persecution,” he added.<\/p>\n Sanchez said Spain had asked the European Commission to activate the EU\u2019s “Blocking Statute” to “protect the independence of the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, and their actions to end the genocide in Gaza<\/a>“.<\/p>\n The remarks came after Sanchez sent a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling for urgent measures to ensure that US sanctions imposed on ICC judges do not affect officials operating within the European Union.<\/p>\n The US administration has imposed sanctions on several ICC officials over investigations into alleged crimes committed in Gaza, including measures such as asset freezes, travel restrictions and disruption of financial services.<\/p>\n Madrid has described the sanctions as a direct threat to the work of international justice.<\/p>\n The EU\u2019s so-called “Blocking Statute” is a legal mechanism designed to shield individuals and entities within the bloc from the extraterritorial impact of foreign sanctions.<\/p>\n Sanchez <\/a>argued that the mechanism should now be expanded beyond trade disputes to include the defence of international human rights institutions.<\/p>\n The move comes amid growing European concern that US sanctions against ICC officials could undermine the independence of international courts and weaken efforts to prosecute war crimes and serious human rights violations linked to Israel’s war on Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain’s Pedro Sanchez called on the EU to shield ICC judges from US sanctions over Gaza investigations, warning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,9703,9704,3165,9706,931,116,9705],"class_list":{"0":"post-14341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-brussels","9":"tag-gaza-war","10":"tag-icc","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-israeli-war-crimes","13":"tag-pedro-sanchez","14":"tag-spain","15":"tag-us-sanctions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116527804351056777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}