US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court for targeting the United States and its allies including Israel, said a White House official.
The executive order will place financial and visa sanctions on individuals and their family members who assist in ICC investigation of US citizens or US allies, the official said, reported Reuters.
The development comes after US Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-led effort last week to sanction the ICC in protest at its arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister over Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Netanyahu is currently on a visit to Washington.
The ICC has not responded to the move yet.
Bracing for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, the court paid salaries three months in advance as a measure to shield staff from possible US sanctions, as per a Reuters report.
December last year, 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.”
The ICC is facing retaliation from the US for the second time as a result of its work. 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 probe into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
The International Criminal Court, with 125 members, is a permanent court that can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and crimes of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals. The United States, China, Russia, and Israel are not the members of ICC.
In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant as well as the slain military commander of Hamas, Mohammed Deif.
The judges observed that there were “reasonable grounds” that the three men bore “criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas.
