THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — The Trump administration took aim at the machinery of international justice Friday, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing sanctions against the entire International Criminal Court after previously targeting its judges and prosecutors.
“We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling their ability to operate against us. Because our message is clear: The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC,” Rubio said in a statement posted to X.
The court condemned the sanctions in a statement Friday.
“It is an assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order which strikes at the simple principle that no one stands above the law,” it said, adding the unprecedented move was aimed at obstructing justice and intimidating those who work for or cooperate with it. “No one should be punished for serving the cause of justice.”
ICC President Tomoko Akane vowed the court would not be intimidated.
“The court will continue to fully discharge its mandate, with independence and impartiality, acting only on the basis of the law and the evidence, for the sake of the countless victims of grave crimes,” she said.
But the tribunal warned it “cannot stand alone,” urging its 125 member states to take concrete action to keep it operating. “History will judge this moment,” it said.
The measures could disrupt the banking and software services that keep the tribunal working. Washington has sought to punish the court for investigating Americans and pursuing Israeli leaders, including issuing an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The ICC consistently constrains liberal, democratic nations like Israel in exercising their rights to self-defense,” the White House said when Trump issued a February 2025 sanctions order.
Under that order, designating the court itself would generally bar Americans and U.S. companies from supplying it with money, goods or services without authorization. Its assets in the United States or held or controlled by U.S. persons would be blocked, subject to applicable exceptions and licenses.
The Trump administration has now sanctioned nine of the ICC’s 18 judges, both of its deputy prosecutors, its former chief prosecutor and one other prosecution office staffer, the court said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared the institution “a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate.”
He announced in July the U.S. was launching a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.”
Under U.S. pressure, five nations have pulled out of the court over the past year: Venezuela, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
Dutch officials had already started looking for ways to keep staff paid, witnesses protected and the detention facility running, reports say, citing diplomatic and government officials briefed on the preparations.
The tribunal had already traded Microsoft products for a German software provider and shifted insurance and financial services to companies without a U.S. footprint, according to court staff. Dutch and court officials had also sought a six-month grace period to replace American providers.
Officials already sanctioned described blocked banking, lost access to digital services and restrictions affecting their families in an April report by the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.
“Judges take decisions based on the law and the facts,” sanctioned court judge Solomy Balungi Bossa said in the report. “If we are punished for our decisions as judges, it is terrible for the rule of law and for the independence of the judiciary.”
Washington has also put sanctions on Francesa Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestine, and Palestinian rights groups Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, whose evidence gathering and support for victims help cases reach court.
“The whole rationale of the sanctions was to silence us, stop us from doing our work, terrify us and terrify others,” Al Mezan director Issam Younis told the coalition.
Trump’s order named prosecutor Karim Khan as its initial target and accused the tribunal of threatening U.S. sovereignty and national security. It rejected the court’s authority over Americans and Israelis because neither country had joined its founding treaty.
In November 2024, judges issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over suspected crimes in Gaza. They found reasonable grounds to believe both bore responsibility for using starvation as a method of warfare and for crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution. Those findings do not establish guilt.
A suspect’s nationality does not, by itself, put them beyond the court’s reach. The tribunal can prosecute offenses committed on a member’s territory. Palestine joined in 2015, and judges later ruled that the court’s territorial jurisdiction there covered Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Created to prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity when national authorities fail to genuinely investigate or prosecute, the tribunal has no police force of its own. It depends on countries to arrest suspects and bring them to The Hague.
U.S. sanctions do not themselves cancel cases or revoke arrest warrants, which remain in effect until the court orders otherwise. They can, however, deprive the tribunal of resources needed to bring those cases to trial.
Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.
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