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ICC Slams US Sanctions on Court, Lawyer08/19 06:18
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- The International Criminal Court on Wednesday
slammed the latest U.S. sanctions targeting senior ICC staff, including its
president, as a "flagrant attack" on the global tribunal's independence and
vowed to continue seeking justice for atrocities around the world.
The State Department announced Tuesday that it had hit ICC president Tomoko
Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is
from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in U.S.
jurisdictions or come into contact with the U.S. financial system.
The Trump administration has now slapped sanctions on 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. The U.S. accuses the court of
overstepping its mandate by investigating and seeking to prosecute senior
military and political officials from countries, such as Israel and the United
States, that are not members of the court.
In a statement, the court said that when "judicial actors are threatened for
applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at
risk." It said the court "will continue to fully discharge its mandate with
independence and impartiality."
In a statement Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio branded the ICC "a
corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused
its authority and exceeded its mandate."
The move came weeks after Rubio announced that the U.S. was launching a
"sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal
Court to U.S. sovereignty."
Rubio said he will pressure the court's 125 member states to withdraw from
the institution, sanction organizations that work with the court and ban staff
from traveling to the United States.
Since then, Venezuela and Chad have announced they plan to leave the court,
bringing the number of countries to pull out of the court in the past year to
five. It takes a year for a country's decision to quit the court to be
formalized.
The sanctions can impact the daily lives of court officials. They prevent
the ICC officials and their families from entering the United States, block
their access to even basic financial services making even going to a grocery
store difficult.
Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, who was sanctioned last year, lost access to
her credit cards, and Amazon's Alexa stopped responding to her. "Your whole
world is restricted," she told The Associated Press after she was targeted.
The court's oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties, called the
sanctions an "escalation" that "risks undermining ongoing investigations and
impeding global efforts" to ensure justice reaches victims of global atrocities.
Japan also criticized the U.S. move.
"The announced measures are very unfortunate," Toshihiro Kitamura, press
secretary at Japan's Foreign Ministry, said in a statement Wednesday.
Japan has consistently supported the ICC in its efforts to prosecute and
punish the most serious crimes of concern to the international community and to
uphold the rule of law, he said. "Japan will remain committed to strengthening
the rule of law in the international community, while maintaining communication
with related countries."
Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the Japanese opposition Democratic Party for the
People, wrote on X that Trump's sanctions were "outrageous and intolerable." He
urged Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government to show its support for the
ICC and reach out to the U.S. government to "have it retract this unjust
sanction."
Balkees Jarrah, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch,
called the sanctions "the latest example of the Trump administration's utter
contempt for international law and a naked attempt to shield American and
Israeli officials implicated in serious crimes from justice."
Human Rights Watch and three other groups sued the Trump administration last
week to challenge its campaign against the ICC. The complaint, filed in the
Southern District of New York, says that Trump's executive order last year
targeting the Hague-based criminal court and the U.S. sanctions issued against
a U.N. human rights expert and three Palestinian rights groups represent a
"blatantly illegal attack on international justice and should be struck down,"
according to a press release.
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