The United States on Friday, October 9, imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court as an institution, going beyond the judges, prosecutors and advocates it had already targeted. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the step in a video posted on social media. "Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC," he said, according to Al Jazeera.
The sanctions block the court's property in U.S. jurisdictions and restrict transactions with it by U.S. individuals and businesses. U.S. companies and individuals have six months to wind down their dealings with the court, and Treasury licenses allow some activity to continue, the Deseret News reported.
Washington's case
The administration argues the court has no power over citizens of countries that never joined it. "America never joined the court. We don't need it. And we don't want it," Rubio said, according to the Deseret News. He said Washington would "ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate."
Two cases sit at the center of the dispute. One is the court's investigation of abuses in Afghanistan, which could reach U.S. military and intelligence personnel. The other is the court's November 2024 arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Israel rejects the court's jurisdiction, and Netanyahu thanked the administration for its "leadership," Al Jazeera reported.
Neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the court. The court's founding treaty lets it prosecute crimes committed on the territory of member states, whatever the nationality of the accused. "To date, the court has not sought to prosecute any US citizens," Al Jazeera reported.
The court's answer
The ICC called the sanctions an attempt to "obstruct the course of justice" and said its work would go on, the Deseret News reported. "History will judge this moment," the court said in a statement quoted by Al Jazeera. Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told Reuters the sanctions "must be condemned," adding, "Our work will continue across all our situations."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "deeply alarmed," calling the decision "a serious blow to our collective pursuit of international criminal justice," Al Jazeera reported the next day. The foreign ministers of Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Japan said they "strongly disagree" with the sanctions. Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Trump was trying "to make the world safe for American and Israeli war criminals."
How it got here
The campaign rests on Executive Order 14203, which President Trump signed on February 6, 2025. Under it, Washington sanctioned ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, several groups of judges, UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese and three Palestinian human rights groups. In August 2026 it added ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior lawyer Abdoulaye Sey, Al Jazeera reported.
Sanctioning the whole court, with about 900 staff, makes it far harder for the institution to protect itself. International law professor William Schabas told Al Jazeera the court had been preparing a "plan B" for more than a year, including a move away from American software. Several rights groups and sanctioned judges have already challenged the sanctions in U.S. courts.
There is an older American law in the background. A 2002 statute bars extraditing U.S. citizens to the ICC and authorizes military force if one is held by the court, a provision critics call the "Hague invasion clause."
The announcement came the same day the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the South African judge Navi Pillay. For how this court differs from its neighbor in The Hague, see our explainer on the ICC and the ICJ.
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