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international criminal court
ICC Judges 'Wiped Out Economically and Socially' by US Sanctions—But Remain Resolute
“In my country, I prosecuted terrorists and drug lords," said Judge Luz Ibáñez Carranza of Peru. "I will continue my work."
Dec 12, 2025
International Criminal Court judges remain steadfast in their pursuit of justice—including for victims of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza—even as they suffer from devastating US sanctions, some of the affected jurists said in recent interviews.
Nine ICC officials are under sanctions imposed in two waves earlier this year by the Trump administration following the Hague-based tribunal's issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The tribunal also issued warrants for the arrest of three Hamas officials, all of whom have been killed by Israel during the course of the war.
The sanctioned jurists are: Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan (United Kingdom), Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan (Fiji), Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang (Senegal), Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza (Peru), Judge Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou (Benin), Judge Beti Hohler (Slovenia), Judge Nicolas Yann Guillou (France), and Judge Kimberly Prost (Canada).
The sanctions followed a February executive order from US President Donald Trump sanctioning Khan and accusing the ICC of “baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
The sanctions—which experts have called an act of criminal obstruction—prevent the targeted ICC officials and their relatives from entering the United States; cut off their access to financial services including banking and credit cards; and prohibit the use of online services like email, shopping, and booking sites.
Fearing steep fines and other punitive measures including possible imprisonment for running afoul of US sanctions by providing “financial, material, or technological support" to targeted individuals, businesses and other entities strictly blacklist sanctioned people—who are typically terrorists, organized crime leaders, and political or military leaders accused of serious human rights crimes.
“Your whole world is restricted,” Prost—who was part of an ICC appellate chamber's unanimous 2020 decision to investigate alleged US war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan—told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I’ve worked all my life in criminal justice, and now I’m on a list with those implicated in terrorism and organized crime."
Ibáñez Carranza said the US sanctions are not deterring her, telling the AP: “In my country, I prosecuted terrorists and drug lords. I will continue my work."
Guillou told Le Monde last week that the sanctions mean he is banned from almost all digital services—including Amazon and PayPal—in a world dominated by US tech giants. This has led to some absurd scenarios, including having a hotel reservation he booked via Expedia in his own country canceled.
"To be under sanctions is like being transported back to the 1990s," he said.
The Trump administration's objective, said Guillou, is "intimidation... permanent fear, and powerlessness."
"European citizens under US sanctions will be wiped out economically and socially within the [European Union]," he added.
Guillou remains defiant in the face of sweeping hardship caused by the sanctions, contending that he is part of a larger struggle for justice as, "empires are hitting back" in response to "three decades of progress in multilateralism."
The US—which, like Israel, is not party to the Rome Statute that governs the ICC—has been at odds with the court for decades. In 2002, Congress passed, and then-President George W. Bush signed, the American Service Members’ Protection Act—also known as the Hague Invasion Act—which authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” including military intervention to secure the release of American or allied personnel held by or on behalf of the ICC.
During his first term, Trump sanctioned then-ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Prosecution Jurisdiction Division Director Phakiso Mochochoko over the Afghan war crimes probe.
The nine jurists sanctioned this year by the US are seeking relief and are calling on European governments to invoke the EU's so-called "Blocking Statute," which is meant to shield officials of the 27-nation bloc from the extraterritorial application of third country laws.
"States parties [to the Rome Statute] face a choice: Continue to capitulate to the bullying of the US, or meet the challenge posed by the sanctions, past and future, and respond appropriately," Jens Iverson, an assistant professor of international law at Leiden University in the Netherlands, wrote last month for OpinioJuris. "Which choice they make will reveal the actual values of the states who as a matter of law are pledged to combat atrocity and impunity."
Ibáñez Carranza told Middle East Eye in a recent interview: "What we are asking are practical measures. What we are asking is action. We need the support of the entire world. But we are in Europe now, and Europe is a powerful structure. The European Union is a powerful structure. They should react as such. They cannot be subordinated to the American policies."
International Criminal Court (ICC) judge Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza has called on the international community to stand with ICC judges following US-imposed sanctions over the court’s arrest warrants for Israeli officials pic.twitter.com/otJfwHgzdw
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 6, 2025
Ibáñez Carranza said that said measures should be taken "to support the court, not only to support the judges, but to support the system... of Rome."
"It's not only the judges" who are affected by the US sanctions, she asserted. "They want to affect the system of Rome, the system of the court, where we deliver justice for... the most defenseless and vulnerable victims... They are the affected ones with this."
"The work of the International Criminal Court is for humanity," Ibáñez Carranza added. "And this is why we are resilient, and this is why we need not only to stand together as judges, but the entire international community."
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US Threatens ICC With More Sanctions to Prevent Future Prosecution of Trump: Report
"Amending the Rome Statute to exclude non-state parties will never happen," said one professor of international law.
Dec 10, 2025
Exclusive reporting by Reuters on Wednesday cites an anonymous government official who says that the Trump administration has privately reached out to the International Criminal Court in order to threaten new sanctions against the ICC unless it pledges not to prosecute President Donald Trump for any crimes he may have committed.
According to the news agency:
The Trump administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Washington has communicated its demands to ICC members, some of whom are U.S. allies, and has also made them known to the court. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC in 2002 as a court of last resort, with the power to prosecute heads of state.
The demand and the threat to resume the U.S. sanctions campaign towards the court have not been previously reported.
In February, just a month after taking office for his second term, Trump announced US sanctions against ICC officials following the issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli government leaders for their role in the military assault and humanitarian embargo on Gaza, characterized by a United Nations investigative body and numerous human rights groups worldwide as a genocide.
The unnamed official who spoke to Reuters said there "is growing concern" that after Trump leaves office in January of 2029, "the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them. That is unacceptable, and we will not allow it to happen."
According to the source, the solution is for ICC members states "to change the Rome Statute to make very clear that they don't have jurisdiction" over US heads of state, including Trump, for any possible crime no matter its nature or where it takes place.
As Reuters notes, "Enshrining blanket immunity for specific individuals would be seen as undermining the court's founding principles and would need approval by the court's governing body, the Assembly of States Parties."
Kevin Jon Heller, a professor international law as the University of Copenhagen and a special adviser to the ICC Prosecutor on War Crimes, said in a social media post Wednesday that it is highly unlikely that member states would bow to the US pressure. "Amending the Rome Statute to exclude non-state parties will never happen," said Heller.
The official did not say which acts of the president have caused the most worry within the administration as it concerns a possible prosecution.
During his second term Trump has—among other possible crimes and violations of international law—ordered the bombing of Iran, unleashed numerous strikes against Somalia and Yemen that have resulted in civilian casualties, provided political support and armed Israel as it carries out a genocide in Gaza, and conducted, since September, a series of extrajudicial murders in the Caribbean and Pacific with aerial bombings that have claimed the lives of at least 87 people.
Reuters reports Friday that it was told by two ICC deputy prosecutors that they had not received any requests to investigate US actions regarding Venezuela.
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Mexico Leads 59 Nations Defending ICC Against 'Unacceptable' Trump Sanctions
One observer asserted that Washington's sanctions against the tribunal "have nothing to with US interest and everything to do with upholding Israeli impunity as it commits genocide."
Nov 14, 2025
Mexico this week led 59 United Nations member states in affirming their support for the International Criminal Court and—without mentioning US officials by name—decrying their sanctions against ICC judges in retaliation for efforts to prosecute Israeli leaders for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The Mexican mission to the UN delivered a letter reaffirming the 59 nations' "continued and unwavering support for the independence, impartiality, and integrity of the ICC," the Hague-based tribunal that is the world's only permanent court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression.
"We express our deep concern over recent measures sanctioning ICC officials, staff, and those cooperating with the court," the letter continues. "Such measures erode the international rule of law, constitute an unacceptable interference with judicial independence, undermine ongoing investigations, and threaten the global fight against impunity."
In February, US President Donald Trump accused the ICC of engaging in "illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel" and ordered "tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICC’s transgressions, some of which may include the blocking of property and assets, as well as the suspension of entry into the United States of ICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members."
This, after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who in October 2023 ordered the "complete siege" of Gaza that has caused famine and illness to spread—and three Hamas members, since killed by Israel, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the case of Netanyahu and Gallant, these include murder and forced starvation.
Israel and the United States vehemently reject the ICC charges. The US—which, like Israel, is not party to the Rome Statute governing the ICC—has ignored the warrants. The White House and US lawmakers have welcomed the two fugitive Israelis as they traveled unimpeded to the United States.
In June, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions targeting the four ICC judges who authorized arrest warrants for Netanyahu and who green-lighted an investigation into torture allegations against American troops in Afghanistan. This, despite ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan's exclusion of US forces from the Afghanistan probe, which focused only on alleged Taliban and Islamic State crimes.
As Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft executive vice president Trita Parsi said Friday in response to the letter, "US sanction[s] against the ICC have nothing to with US interest and everything to do with upholding Israeli impunity as it commits genocide."
The 59 countries' letter denounces the sanctions, which "violate both the letter and the spirit of the Rome Statute and consequently place victims, witnesses, and court officials, many of whom are our nationals, at risk."
"All states must respect and protect the court's judicial functions and refrain from any coercive measures that would impede the court's work, impartiality, and independence," the letter stresses.
The Trump administration has also sanctioned other international officials who have condemned Israel's genocidal war on Gaza and US complicity, including Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories.
The administration has also taken aim at members of the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague, as they weigh a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa in December 2023. The ICJ has issued several provisional orders for Israel to avoid genocidal acts, allow aid into Gaza, and end the assault on Rafah. Israel has been accused of ignoring all of these orders.
US disdain and animosity toward the ICC is nothing new. During the administration of George W. Bush, the US passed the American Service Members’ Protection Act—also known as the Hague Invasion Act—which authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” including military intervention to secure the release of American or allied personnel held by or on behalf of the ICC.
The Mexico-led letter follows other affirmations of support for the ICC and its mission, including statements issued in June 2024 and February 2025 signed by 93 and 79 UN member states, respectively.
Speaking on the same day that Mexico delivered its letter, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock of Germany condemned sanctions against ICC members as “attacks against the very principles of international law."
“For more than two decades, the court has faced impunity and shown that, even in the darkest moments, accountability remains possible,” Baerbock said. “However, today, while we are witnessing atrocities that continue to shock the conscience of humanity, it is evident that the mission of the court is far from fulfilled.”
“Court officials have been sanctioned for upholding the rule of law and demanding accountability, and their systems have been targeted by cyberattacks aimed at undermining the credibility of the court,” she noted. "These are not isolated incidents, but deliberate attacks against the court with the aim of weakening the rule of law and eroding trust in international institutions.”
The new letter came as ICC President Tomoko Akane delivered the court's annual report to the General Assembly.
“We are only bound by the law and we do not change the course of our actions due to threats, be them political or of another nature,” Akane said Tuesday. “We will continue abiding by our mandate undeterred, with integrity, determination, impartiality, and independence at all times.”
“Let me be very clear on this," she added. "We cannot give up. We will not give up."
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