Trump to impose sanctions on Worldwide Prison Courtroom

The Worldwide Prison Courtroom constructing in The Hague, Netherlands. File
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump will signal an government order on Thursday (February 6, 2025) to sanction the Worldwide Prison Courtroom for focusing on america and its allies, reminiscent of Israel, a White Home official mentioned.

The order will place monetary and visa sanctions on people and their relations who help in ICC investigations of U.S. residents or U.S. allies, mentioned the official.

The transfer by Mr. Trump comes after U.S. Senate Democrats final week blocked a Republican-led effort to sanction the ICC in protest at its arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister over Israel’s marketing campaign in Gaza. Mr. Netanyahu is at present visiting Washington.

The ICC didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

U.S. President Donald Trump
| Photograph Credit score:
Reuters

The court docket has taken measures to protect workers from doable U.S. sanctions, paying salaries three months prematurely, because it braced for monetary restrictions that would cripple the conflict crimes tribunal, sources instructed Reuters final month.

In December, the court docket’s president, choose Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would “quickly undermine the Courtroom’s operations in all conditions and instances, and jeopardise its very existence.”

That is the second time the court docket has confronted U.S. retaliation because of its work. Throughout the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and considered one of her prime aides over the ICC’s investigation into alleged conflict crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.

The 125-member ICC is a everlasting court docket that may prosecute people for conflict crimes, crimes towards humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression towards the territory of member states or by their nationals. The US, China, Russia and Israel are usually not members.