U.S. Sanctions ICC President and Senior Lawyer as Pressure Campaign Widens

THE UNITED STATES imposed sanctions Tuesday on International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, extending the Trump administration’s campaign against the Hague-based court.

The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was designating Akane, a Japanese judge, and Seye, a Senegalese national under a Trump executive order issued last year authorizing sanctions against the court.

“These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction,” Rubio said.

The ICC condemned the action, saying the sanctions undermine the rule of law.

“When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk,” the ICC said.

The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets Akane and Seye may hold and effectively cut them off from the U.S. financial system, which has close ties to most banks operating internationally. The Treasury Department also issued a general license authorizing the wind-down of transactions involving them through Sept. 17.

Seye is a senior trial lawyer on the prosecution team that sought an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has also been nominated for election as an ICC judge.

Akane warned in December that U.S. sanctions would “rapidly undermine the court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardize its very existence.”

The United States imposed targeted sanctions last year on several ICC officials, including prosecutors and judges. Washington cited the court’s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with an earlier investigation involving U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Trump said the campaign was intended to defend Netanyahu and others from prosecution, excluding himself.

Three ICC judges sued Trump and his administration in June, arguing that the sanctions were unlawful.

Advocacy groups have filed two separate lawsuits, saying the U.S. campaign violates the constitutional rights of organizations working with the court to seek justice for atrocities around the world.

Rubio said last month that the administration would intensify its effort to undermine the ICC. The campaign includes diplomatic pressure on other countries to leave the institution, a step at least five countries have taken.

Rubio argued that the court poses a threat to U.S. personnel carrying out Trump’s hard-line immigration policies, strikes on boats accused of carrying drugs and other military operations.

The United States has never been a member of the ICC. The court asserts authority only when a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocities itself. Its founding statute also permits the prosecution of atrocity crimes committed within a member state’s territory by nationals of a country outside the court.

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