The United States has imposed sanctions on the president of the International Criminal Court and a senior member of its prosecution team, marking the latest step in the Trump administration's intensifying campaign against the Hague-based tribunal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Tuesday that sanctions would be applied to ICC President Tomoko Akane, a Japanese judge, and Abdoulaye Seye, a Senegalese senior trial lawyer on the court's prosecution team. The measures freeze any US assets the individuals hold and effectively cut them off from the global financial system, since nearly all internationally operating banks maintain close ties with the US financial network.
Rubio justified the move by accusing both individuals of engaging in efforts to "investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction." He described the court as "a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court" that has "maliciously abused its authority," adding that the US would not tolerate what he called an assault on state sovereignty. Seye is notably part of the prosecution team that sought arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza — warrants that triggered the Trump administration's initial wave of sanctions last year. To date, at least 11 ICC officials, including nine judges and chief prosecutor Karim Khan, have been sanctioned.
The ICC, established in 2002 and empowered by more than 120 member states to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, condemned the move in firm terms. "When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk," the court said, adding that it stands behind its staff. Akane herself had warned as recently as December that US sanctions were rapidly undermining the court's operations and threatening its very existence — citing staff departures and companies unwilling to work with the institution for fear of becoming targets themselves.
The escalation has deepened a rift between Washington and its European allies. Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen, whose country hosts the court in The Hague, publicly expressed disapproval and said he had invited Akane to discuss the Netherlands' continued support, stating that "international courts and tribunals must be able to freely carry out their mandates." Meanwhile, legal challenges are mounting in the US itself: three ICC judges launched a federal lawsuit in June arguing the sanctions are unlawful, and four prominent human rights organisations — including Human Rights Watch and the Center for Constitutional Rights — have separately sued the Trump administration, calling its campaign unconstitutional.
The broader context underscores the stakes of the dispute. The US has never been a member of the ICC, and successive administrations have resisted its jurisdiction, but the Trump administration has gone further than any predecessor, with Rubio last month urging the court's 124 member states to withdraw from it entirely — a campaign he described as dismantling the institution "brick by brick." At least five countries have already signalled they may heed that call. For rights advocates, the pattern is clear: by targeting the individuals responsible for applying international law, the administration is eroding the foundations of the global legal order built up over decades to hold perpetrators of mass atrocities to account.