The United States has sanctioned the president of the International Criminal Court and one of its senior trial lawyers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced.
The action marks a fresh escalation in the Trump administration’s confrontation with the Hague-based court, created by the international community in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The US has never joined the court.
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In a statement, Mr Rubio said sanctions were being imposed on Tomoko Akane, a Japanese judge who leads the International Criminal Court, and Abdoulaye Seye, a Senegalese national and senior trial lawyer. The measures were authorised under an executive order signed by Donald Trump last year targeting the court.
“These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction,” Mr Rubio said.
“When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk,” the ICC said.
Mr Seye serves as a senior trial attorney on the prosecution team that sought an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has also been nominated for election as an ICC judge.
Ms Akane, the court’s top judge, warned in December that US sanctions could “rapidly undermine the court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardise its very existence”.
Last year, Washington imposed targeted sanctions on several ICC officials, including prosecutors and judges. The administration cited the court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, along with an earlier investigation into US troops in Afghanistan.
The sanctions freeze any assets the individuals hold in the United States and effectively shut them out of the American financial system, to which almost all internationally operating banks maintain close ties.
In June, three International Criminal Court judges sued Mr Trump and his administration, claiming the sanctions were unlawful.
In two separate lawsuits, advocacy groups have argued that the US campaign violates the constitutional rights of organizations that work with the court to pursue justice for atrocities worldwide.
Mr Rubio said last month that the administration planned to intensify its efforts against the ICC, including a diplomatic drive to persuade other countries to leave the institution. At least five countries have already responded to that call.
Mr Rubio said the court could threaten US personnel enforcing President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, conducting strikes on boats accused of carrying drugs, and carrying out other military duties.
Mr Trump has said the campaign is intended to shield Mr Netanyahu and others from prosecution, rather than protect him personally.
The United States has never been a member of the court. The ICC claims jurisdiction only when a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocities itself.
But the court’s statute also allows it to prosecute atrocity crimes committed on the territory of member states, even when those crimes are carried out by nationals of countries that do not belong to the ICC.
