Trump slaps ‘aggressive financial sanctions’ on ICC for issuing ‘baseless’ arrest warrant in opposition to Netanyahu

Days after he met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump signed an govt order to impose sanctions on the Worldwide Prison Court docket (ICC). Whereas imposing what the White Home referred to as “aggressive financial sanctions,” the worldwide tribunal was accused of concentrating on the US and Israel.

The chief order grants Trump the broad energy to impose freezing of belongings together with journey bans in opposition to any ICC employees and their members of the family if the US determines that they had been concerned within the investigation and prosecution of US residents and its allies. The order was seen as a retaliation to ICC’s choice to problem an arrest warrant in opposition to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. The Israeli leaders together with the now-deceased Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammad Dief, had been accused of committing struggle crimes in Gaza.

Within the order, Trump accused the ICC of “abusing energy” by issuing warrants in opposition to Netanyahu and Gallant. He claimed that the transfer “set a harmful precedent” that endangered US residents and its navy personnel. “This malign conduct in flip threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the USA and undermines the vital nationwide safety and overseas coverage work of the USA authorities and our allies, together with Israel,” he added.

Trump warns of ‘important penalties’

It’s pertinent to notice that neither the USA nor the state of Israel are members of the ICC and therefore aren’t obligated to comply with its orders. Trump insisted that the worldwide court docket should “respect the choice” of nations “to not topic their personnel to the ICC’s jurisdiction”. Within the order, he made it clear that the US “will impose tangible and important penalties on these answerable for the ICC’s transgressions” together with by blocking property and belongings and suspending entry into the US of ICC officers and their members of the family.

Whereas it was unclear if the Trump administration would launch the names of particular people it plans to sanction, the ICC was making ready for the hurricane. Senior figures on the court docket, together with its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, are readying themselves for the impression of the sanctions. On Thursday, ICC officers labored late into the evening, awaiting the announcement from the White Home, The Guardian reported.

Final week, a invoice which referred to as for the imposition of sweeping sanctions on ICC was stalled within the Senate after the Democrats refused to assist the sanctions. Trump’s order obtained backlash from the secretary basic of Amnesty Worldwide, Agnès Callamard, who stated that the order “sends the message that Israel is above the regulation and the common rules of worldwide justice”.

“Right this moment’s govt order is vindictive. It’s aggressive. It’s a brutal step that seeks to undermine and destroy what the worldwide neighborhood has painstakingly constructed over many years if not centuries: world guidelines which might be relevant to everybody and purpose to ship justice for all,” she furthered.

Curiously, this isn’t the primary time Trump issued sanctions in opposition to the ICC. Throughout his first stint in workplace, Trump issued a separate however related order in 2020. He imposed journey bans and asset freezes in opposition to the ICC’s former prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, who’s Gambian, and one of many court docket’s prime officers.

The order was imposed in response to the choice made by Bensouda in struggle crimes investigations in Afghanistan and the occupied Palestinian territories. In 2021, she upgraded the case to a proper prison investigation. The present prosecutor, Karim Khan, ultimately inherited the inquiry and later accelerated it after Hamas’ October 7 assault in Israel.