statement<\/a> on Wednesday, the court said it \u201cdeplored\u201d the Trump administration\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n\u201cThese sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s foreign ministry declined to answer questions about the discussions with the Americans, pointing instead to a statement on Wednesday about the case.<\/p>\n
Updated\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aug. 25, 2026, 1:51 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
\u201cJapan intends to continue working to strengthen the rule of law in the international community while maintaining close communication with relevant countries and parties,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
A Confident, Dedicated Prosecutor<\/p>\n
Judge Akane, who grew up in Nagoya, an industrial metropolis in central Japan, initially thought she might be a scientist. Her father suggested a career in medicine, but she was terrified of surgery, she wrote in her book. She set out to study law instead.<\/p>\n
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, she struggled because of sexism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was simply told, \u2018We have no use for women here,\u2019 and sent away,\u201d she wrote about applying for work at a government office.<\/p>\n
She eventually became a prosecutor in the city of Yokohama, near Tokyo, in 1982. But she sometimes found it hard to be taken seriously. Once, while visiting a detention center, she was asked to wear an oversize white coat to avoid attracting attention from male inmates, she recalled in her book.<\/p>\n
Judge Akane rose rapidly through the Japanese legal system, eventually joining the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office in Tokyo, which oversees government prosecutors across the country, before being tapped to join the I.C.C. in 2018.<\/p>\n
At the court, she took part in several high-stakes cases, including the arrest warrant issued against Mr. Putin in 2023 for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children. In 2024, she became the first person from Japan to lead the court as president and was involved in that year\u2019s decision to issue arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and a former Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Judge Akane has frequently been the target of intimidation campaigns for her work. In December, Russia responded to the arrest warrant for Mr. Putin by convicting her and eight other officials in absentia for \u201cunlawful prosecution\u201d of Russian citizens.<\/p>\n
Still, she has projected a confident image. \u201cOur independence and impartiality,\u201d she told a gathering at the I.C.C.\u2019s headquarters in The Hague last year, \u201care our polar stars and remain unaffected.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has urged Japan to more forcefully defend the I.C.C. In her book, she recounted trying to lobby Japanese officials to \u201cdo everything in their power to support the I.C.C.\u201d She criticized Japan\u2019s decision not to sign the statement last year in support of the court.<\/p>\n
\u2018Large Nightmare Scenario\u2019<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u2019s campaign against the I.C.C. and Judge Akane has garnered wide attention in Japan, with some commentators saying that the country should distance itself from the United States.<\/p>\n
Kazuko Ito, a prominent human rights lawyer, said Japan risked \u201crepeating the mistakes of World War II\u201d if it aligned with a country that openly disregarded international law.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllowing such an outrage to stand risks destroying the very international order built in the postwar era,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n
The penalties imposed on Judge Akane have also resurrected fears about the durability of the military and economic alliance between Japan and the United States under Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be a limit to friendship,\u201d said Naoko Hashimoto, an associate professor at International Christian University in Tokyo. \u201cThere should be a red line that Japan cannot allow the U.S. to cross.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the past several decades, Japan has become deeply invested in global alliances and international institutions like the I.C.C., seeing them as necessary to counter aggression and abuses by autocratic countries. Now, Mr. Trump appears intent on demolishing that system.<\/p>\n
Jeff Kingston, a professor of modern Japanese politics and history at Temple University\u2019s Tokyo campus, said the concern for Japan was whether Mr. Trump would continue to erode the rules-based system.<\/p>\n
\u201cJapan is not only worried about the assault on the independence and autonomy of the I.C.C., but also the larger reverberations for America\u2019s security alliance with Japan,\u201d he said. \u201cAll of this is sort of a large nightmare scenario playing out in reality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Trump administration escalated its attacks on the International Criminal Court last year, imposing sanctions on several…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51329,7767,37884,4862,1148,8,51330,3187,2299,453,550,7764],"class_list":["post-80206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-courts-and-the-judiciary","tag-donald-j","tag-embargoes-and-sanctions","tag-international-criminal-court","tag-international-relations","tag-japan","tag-legal-profession","tag-sanae","tag-takaichi","tag-trump","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-international-relations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}