THE HAGUE – The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Feb 7 hit back after US President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on the institution, vowing it would continue to provide “justice and hope” around the world.
“The ICC condemns the issuance by the US of an executive order seeking to impose sanctions on its officials and harm its independent and impartial judicial work,” the court said in a statement.
“The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” added the court based in The Hague.
“We call on our 125 states parties, civil society and all nations of the world to stand united for justice and fundamental human rights,” the ICC statement concluded.
Court officials convened meetings in The Hague on Feb 7 to discuss the implications of the sanctions, a source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Attacking the ICC for what Mr Trump said were “illegitimate and baseless” investigations targeting America and its ally Israel, he hit the court with sanctions on Feb 6.
The move was a protest against the court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and came as he was visiting Washington.
He ordered asset freezes and travel bans against ICC officials, employees and their family members, along with anyone deemed to have helped the court’s investigations.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar applauded Mr Trump on Feb 7 over the sanctions, calling the court’s actions against Israel illegitimate.
“I strongly commend President Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the so-called ‘international criminal court’,” Mr Saar wrote on social media platform X, adding that the ICC’s actions were “immoral and have no legal basis”.
The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals.
Neither the US nor Israel are members of the court.
The European Union warned that the move was a threat to ICC’s independence.
“Sanctioning the ICC threatens the court’s independence and undermines the international criminal justice system as a whole,” Mr Antonio Costa, who heads the European Council representing the EU’s 27 member states, wrote on social media platform Bluesky.
The European Commission separately expressed “regret” regarding Mr Trump’s sanctions, stressing the ICC’s “key importance in upholding international criminal justice and the fight against impunity”.
The United Nations said it deeply regretted Mr Trump’s decision and urged him to reverse the move.
The Netherlands, the host nation of the ICC based in The Hague, also said it regretted the sanctions.
“The court’s work is essential in the fight against impunity,” Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said in a post on X.
But Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a staunch ally of Mr Trump, said the sanctions showed it might be time to leave the ICC.
“It’s time for Hungary to review what we’re doing in an international organization that is under US sanctions! New winds are blowing in international politics. We call it the Trump-tornado,” he said on X.
It was unclear how quickly the US would announce names of people sanctioned.
During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Trump signed the executive order after US Senate Democrats last week blocked a Republican-led effort to pass legislation setting up a sanctions regime targeting the war crimes court.
The court has taken measures to shield staff from possible US sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance, as it braced for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, sources told Reuters in January.
In December, the court’s president, Judge Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would “rapidly undermine the court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardise its very existence”.
Russia has also taken aim at the court.
In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
Russia has banned entry to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and placed him and two ICC judges on its wanted list. AFP, REUTERS
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