{"id":360365,"date":"2025-08-20T21:12:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T21:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360365\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T21:12:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T21:12:19","slug":"us-imposes-sanctions-on-international-court-officials-in-flagrant-attack-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360365\/","title":{"rendered":"US imposes sanctions on international court officials in \u2018flagrant attack\u2019 | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration<\/a> has ramped up its efforts to hobble the international criminal court<\/a> in what the ICC has denounced as a \u201cflagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution\u201d.<\/p>\n

The US state department on Wednesday announced new sanctions on four ICC officials, including two judges and two prosecutors, saying they had been instrumental in efforts to prosecute Americans and Israelis. As a result of the sanctions, any assets that the targets hold in US jurisdictions are frozen.<\/p>\n

The sanctions were immediately denounced by both the ICC and the United Nations, while Israel welcomed the move announced by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is just the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken against the Hague-based court, the world\u2019s first international war crimes tribunal. The US, which is not a member of the court, has already imposed penalties on the ICC\u2019s former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who stepped aside in May<\/a> pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, and four other tribunal judges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new penalties target the ICC judges Kimberly Prost of Canada and Nicolas Guillou of France and prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese individuals are foreign persons who directly engaged in efforts by the international criminal court to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of either nation,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n

He added that the administration would continue \u201cto take whatever actions we deem necessary to protect our troops, our sovereignty and our allies from the ICC\u2019s illegitimate and baseless actions\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a separate statement, the state department said Prost was sanctioned for a ruling to authorize an ICC investigation into personnel in Afghanistan, which was later dropped. Guillou was sanctioned for ruling to authorize the ICC\u2019s issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> and Israel\u2019s former minister of defense Yoav Gallant related to Israel\u2019s war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

France \u2013 whose president, Emmanuel Macron, was in Washington two days earlier \u2013 expressed \u201cdismay\u201d over the action.<\/p>\n

The sanctions are \u201cin contradiction to the principle of an independent judiciary\u201d, a foreign ministry spokesperson said in Paris.<\/p>\n

Khan and Niang were penalized for continuing Karim Khan\u2019s investigation into Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza, including upholding the ICC\u2019s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, according to the statement.<\/p>\n

In response, the ICC issued a statement calling the sanctions \u201ca flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution\u201d and \u201can affront against the Court\u2019s states parties, the rules-based international order and, above all, millions of innocent victims across the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

A UN spokesperson, St\u00e9phane Dujarric, said the ICC had the full support of the world body to carry out its work. The UN was \u201cvery concerned\u201d about the US continuing to target the international court, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe firmly believe that the ICC is a key pillar of international criminal justice, and we respect their work,\u201d Dujarric said. \u201cThe decision imposes severe impediments on the functioning of the office of the prosecutor in respect for all the situations that are currently before the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Netanyahu welcomed the US move.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a firm measure against the mendacious smear campaign against the State of Israel and the IDF, and for truth and justice,\u201d he said in a statement, using an acronym for the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s move carries on a history of Trump administration<\/a> actions against the ICC dating back to his first term in office. During Trump\u2019s first term, the US hit the ICC with sanctions, but those were rescinded by Joe Biden\u2019s administration<\/a> in early 2021.<\/p>\n

Danya Chaikel, the International Federation for Human Rights\u2019s representative to the ICC, said the escalation in US sanctions amounted to \u201ca continued attack on the rule of law and a blatant attempt to intimidate those pursuing accountability for atrocity crimes\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said the new sanctions were a \u201cdefining test\u201d for the ICC\u2019s 125 member states. \u201cWill they defend the court\u2019s independence and the rights of victims of international crimes, or allow intimidation by powerful states to dictate who deserves justice?\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to hobble the international criminal court in what the ICC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-360365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115063157392240278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}