US sanctions ICC president in escalating campaign against court

On a Tuesday in August, the United States moved to isolate two officials at the International Criminal Court by freezing them out of American territory and the US financial system. The targets were Tomoko Akane, the court's president, and Abdoulaye Seye, a senior trial lawyer from Senegal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the action as a necessary response to what he called the ICC's politicization—specifically, its willingness to investigate and prosecute officials from countries that never agreed to the court's jurisdiction.

The move was not sudden. It was the latest escalation in a sustained campaign by the Trump administration against The Hague-based tribunal, an institution that has existed since 2002 to prosecute individuals accused of the world's gravest atrocities when their own countries lack the capacity or will to do so. The United States, notably, has never ratified the treaty that established the ICC, though it signed the Rome Statute decades ago. That outsider status has not stopped Washington from wielding considerable pressure against the court's operations.

The real friction point is Israel. In 2024, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza. That action prompted the current administration to view the court as a threat to a key American ally. Netanyahu himself welcomed the sanctions on Tuesday, calling the ICC a kangaroo court masquerading as an instrument of international law. The sanctions, in his view, were overdue.

But the court pushed back hard. In a statement, ICC officials said the measures "undermine the rule of law" and placed "the international legal order itself" at risk. When judges and prosecutors face threats for applying the law, they argued, the entire system of accountability collapses. The Netherlands, where the ICC maintains its headquarters, also objected. Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen wrote that international courts must be free to carry out their mandates without political interference.

The timing matters. Just weeks earlier, the State Department had launched a broader diplomatic campaign against the ICC, pressuring member states to withdraw from the organization. Chad and Venezuela have already announced departures. The ICC expressed alarm at these withdrawals, warning that they would weaken the collective pursuit of justice for war crimes victims. Yet the administration pressed on, with Rubio's statement declaring the court "corrupt and fatally politicized" and accusing it of abusing its authority.

Meanwhile, four human rights organizations filed suit against President Trump in New York, arguing that the sanctions block victims of war crimes from accessing justice. Human Rights Watch, one of the plaintiffs, called the new measures "a naked attempt to shield American and Israeli officials implicated in serious crimes from justice." The organization's Middle East director noted the administration's apparent contempt for international law itself.

The broader context is stark. Russia, which is not an ICC member, issued its own arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 over the war in Ukraine—a move that prompted Moscow to retaliate with arrest warrants against senior court officials. Israel, like Russia and the United States, has never joined the ICC. Yet all three have found themselves at odds with an institution designed to hold individuals accountable when national systems fail. The question now is whether sustained pressure from Washington will hollow out the court's ability to function, or whether member states will hold firm in their commitment to a mechanism for justice that transcends national borders.