A view of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands [AFP]
A view of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands [AFP]

The Trump administration has sharply escalated its pressure on the International Criminal Court, sanctioning two senior officials including the court's president.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that the United States was designating ICC President Tomoko Akane of Japan and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye as sanctioned individuals. He said the move was intended to advance "the diplomatic campaign we launched last month to address the ICC's abuse of power."

Rubio said the two officials "have been directly involved in the ICC's efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute officials of countries that have not consented to the ICC's jurisdiction."

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control also added Akane and Seye to its Specially Designated Nationals list that day.

The ICC is a permanent international tribunal established in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2002 under the Rome Statute. It investigates and prosecutes individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute and has long maintained that the ICC has no jurisdiction over American nationals.

Trump signed an executive order imposing ICC sanctions shortly after beginning his second term, in February last year, in part over the court's issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The latest measures are also widely read as aimed at preempting potential ICC scrutiny of incidents that critics have flagged as possible war crimes — including an errant strike on a girls' school in Iran in the early stages of the Iran war and attacks on vessels suspected of drug trafficking in the Caribbean.

Rubio said the administration's "all-out campaign to dismantle the ICC's threat to national sovereignty will be waged aggressively," adding that he expected more countries to join by cutting funding and ties to "a politicized and unaccountable court."

He added that the Trump administration "stands ready to take additional action as necessary to systematically dismantle the ICC until it can no longer threaten American sovereignty."


mokiya@heraldcorp.com