TOKYO (Kyodo) — Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Wednesday it is “very unfortunate” that the United States has imposed sanctions on Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national who heads the International Criminal Court, in Washington’s latest move against the Hague-based judicial body.

Following the U.S. measure taken on Tuesday, Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo that her government will deal with the situation by “continuing communication with relevant nations including the United States.”

Foreign Press Secretary Toshihiro Kitamura also issued a statement, saying that Japan has “consistently supported” the ICC in its efforts to prosecute and punish “the most serious crimes of concern to the international community.”

Tokyo will remain committed to “strengthening the rule of law” globally through dialogue with related countries and others, Kitamura, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, added.

The sanctions came as President Donald Trump’s administration has criticized the ICC for opening an investigation into U.S. military personnel over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan and issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his country’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

See also


Japanese judges pursue rule of law in The Hague despite backlash

In a statement announcing the sanctions on Tuesday, which also targeted Senegal’s Abdoulaye Seye, an ICC senior trial lawyer, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the court as a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate.”

Rubio claimed that Akane and Seye have “directly engaged” in the ICC’s efforts to “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute” officials whose governments have not consented to its jurisdiction.

When Rubio announced last month the launch of a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat” he said the ICC poses to his nation’s sovereignty, Takaichi’s government said that Japan, a close U.S. ally, was “watching closely with concern.”

Akane, a 70-year-old former prosecutor, began her three-year term in March 2024 as the organization’s first president from Japan.

As an ICC judge, Akane was involved in issuing an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023 over his alleged involvement in the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children amid his country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In retaliation, Russia has put her on its wanted list.

With the latest imposition, Washington has sanctioned nine of the ICC’s 18 judges, including Akane, with punitive measures such as freezing their assets in the United States and effectively shutting their access out of the U.S. financial system.