TOKYO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A former Japanese defense minister on Friday described a U.S. decision to sanction the International Criminal Court and its Japanese president as an outright attack on the rules-based international order. <\/p>\n
Gen Nakatani, a veteran lawmaker in the governing party, urged Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to protest more firmly and demand that the U.S. withdraw the measures.<\/p>\n
Nakatani said there is no reason for the ICC and its president, Tomoko Akane, to come under U.S. \u201cpolitical coercion and sanctions.\u201d <\/p>\n
His demand comes just weeks before Takaichi\u2019s expected U.S. trip to attend the United Nations\u2019 General Assembly and possibly meet with President Trump. Nakatani, who heads a cross-party group of dozens of lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties working on human rights and diplomacy, will submit its demands to Takaichi\u2019s top government spokesperson by mid-September.<\/p>\n
The Japan-U.S. alliance and Tokyo\u2019s adherence to the rule of law should not be \u201ca choice of one or the other,\u201d said Nakatani, a senior member of Takaichi\u2019s governing Liberal Democratic Party and a national security expert.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing docile and not saying what needs to be said at a crucial time as an ally, (Japan) would even lose trust from the United States,\u201d Nakatani said.<\/p>\n
Takaichi has been criticized for perceived weakness as she struggles to balance Japan\u2019s support for the rule of law and its ties with the Trump administration. She has described the U.S. sanctions on the ICC as \u201cunfortunate\u201d and said the measures are not compatible with Japan\u2019s policy. <\/p>\n
Nakatani urged Takaichi to more firmly protest and demand that Washington retract its sanctions against the ICC and Akane, and express Japan\u2019s continued support for the ICC and Akane.<\/p>\n
Washington has accused the ICC of overstepping its mandate and has imposed sanctions on about a dozen court staff in retaliation for investigations into Israeli officials in Gaza and U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
The sanctions freeze any assets held in U.S. jurisdictions and prevent court officials and their families from entering the United States.<\/p>\n
Speaking last month, Akane said the sanctions have not intimidated her or affected her work, and that she would protect the ICC, its judges and staff and their operations. She called on Japan to work with other ICC members to defend the court and convince Washington not to further escalate the situation.<\/p>\n
Yamaguchi writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A former Japanese defense minister on Friday described a U.S. decision to sanction the International Criminal Court and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4005,27566,27565,1057,27570,1424,27571,14672,7003,27567,42,25318,27568,24163,27569,1364],"class_list":["post-43243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-hague","tag-demand","tag-gen-nakatani","tag-icc-president","tag-japan","tag-japanese-president","tag-law","tag-measure","tag-rule","tag-support","tag-takaichi","tag-the-hague","tag-tomoko-akane","tag-u-s-decision","tag-u-s-sanction","tag-veteran-lawmaker","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}