The United States has imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye over their involvement in the court’s investigations, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Tuesday.
The move represents a further escalation of President Donald Trump’s administration’s campaign against the Hague-based tribunal.
Akane, a Japanese judge who leads the ICC, and Seye, a Senegalese national, were sanctioned under an executive order signed by Trump last year that authorised punitive measures against the court and its officials.
“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, according to Reuters.
Established in 2002, the ICC was created to prosecute individuals accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
The United States, however, is not a member of the court.
The latest sanctions follow similar measures imposed by Washington last year against several ICC officials, including prosecutors and judges.
At the time, the US pointed to the court’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as an earlier ICC investigation into US troops in Afghanistan.
The sanctions freeze any assets held by the targeted individuals in the United States and restrict their access to the US financial system, which is closely linked to banks operating internationally.
Three ICC judges had earlier sued Trump and his administration in June, arguing that the sanctions imposed against them were unlawful.
The US Treasury Department also issued a general licence on Tuesday permitting transactions involving Akane to be wound down by September 17.
Rubio said last month that the administration planned to intensify its efforts against the ICC, including a “diplomatic campaign seeking to persuade other countries to withdraw from the institution.”
He argued that the court posed a threat to US personnel involved in Trump’s hardline immigration policies, strikes on boats suspected of carrying drugs and other American service members.
Trump has maintained that the campaign is intended to protect Netanyahu and other individuals from prosecution rather than shield himself.
Although the United States has never been a member of the ICC, the court maintains that it can exercise jurisdiction where a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocity crimes itself.
The ICC statute also permits the court to prosecute atrocity crimes committed on the territory of member states, including where the alleged perpetrators are nationals of countries that are not members of the court.
