The United States has sanctioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) hours after one of its former judges was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee said it was also a show of support for the institutions under attack.
On Friday, South African Judge Navanesem “Nabi” Pillay, also a judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, was announced as the winner.
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Nobel Committee President Jørgen Watne Fridnes said the international legal system was “under tremendous pressure” and that its institutions were “under attack”.
“In awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee would like to remind the world that the domestic and international rule of law underpins the systems we have established to ensure peace and resolve conflicts non-violently. Peace requires justice,” the committee said.
The U.S. action follows sanctions already imposed against ICC judges and other officials this year.
Here’s what we know:
What did the US announce?
On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the latest set of US sanctions targeting the ICC, this time focusing on the court itself, which was established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
“We will prohibit doing business with this fraudulent court, cut off their resources, and cripple their ability to fight us, because our message is clear: the United States and its people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC,” he said in a video shared on social media.
The Trump administration claims the ICC exceeded its authority by pursuing non-member states. In 2024, the Trump administration criticized the court when it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes charges in Gaza. It also previously launched an investigation into the actions of American soldiers in Afghanistan.
The United States and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that establishes the court’s jurisdiction. However, abuses committed by nationals of countries not legally recognized in the ICC territory or country may still be prosecuted.
“Either the ICC stops threatening us, or we quit the ICC,” Rubio said in a statement, adding that the United States “will continue our campaign to dismantle the ICC step by step” if America’s allies fail to “retain it in court.”
What other sanctions has the US imposed on the ICC?
These sanctions are just the latest in the US campaign against the ICC. Previous actions have targeted dozens of ICC judges and prosecutors, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, and Palestinian rights organizations that have submitted evidence of Israeli war crimes to the court.
In August, ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior lawyer Abdullahi Seyi were also sanctioned by the United States, which Rubio said was part of the United States’ steadfast mission to protect Americans from this bogus court.
Assets held in the United States will be frozen and transactions with American companies will be restricted.
>What do the latest sanctions actually mean?
Sanctions targeting courts could also penalize companies that provide services to courts. It also plans to freeze ICC assets held in U.S. territory.
However, it gave U.S. companies a six-month grace period to terminate existing deals with the court. There are also other exemptions that allow certain transactions.
William Shabazz, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, told Al Jazeera that the court has been “developing a Plan B” for more than a year to avoid potential sanctions.
This includes moving to European software to replace American software and ending its relationship with American insurer AXA.
“How important this will be remains to be seen,” he says. “Obviously, things are going to get a lot more complicated for educational institutions.”
What was the reaction to this?
“What Trump is trying to do is make the world safe for American and Israeli war criminals,” Kenneth Roth, a senior fellow at Yale University and former executive director of Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera.
The ICC itself issued a statement condemning the US move as an attempt to “obstruct the course of justice” and intimidate those working and cooperating with the court.
“This is an attack on the rule of law and the very foundations of the international legal order, and an attack on the simple principle that no one is above the law,” he said, calling on the 125 parties to take action to ensure the continuation of their work.
“History will judge this moment. Future generations, and above all the victims of mass atrocities, will ask how we responded when the institutions set up to protect them came under attack,” the magazine added.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” by the decision, adding that it was a “serious blow to the collective pursuit of international criminal justice”.
The foreign ministers of Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Japan all “strongly opposed” the sanctions and warned of serious repercussions in court.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump for his leadership on social media and denounced the ICC as a “political entity that poses a deadly threat to the rule of law and democracy around the world.”
Is the US eroding the international legal system?
Targeting the ICC by the United States threatens the rule of law, as international courts and tribunals must be able to operate without the threat of sanctions.
The United States itself has repeatedly ignored international law under President Trump. A joint attack on Israel and Iran in February was criticized by observers as violating both U.S. law and Article 2, Section 4 of the United Nations Charter, and the U.S. military’s abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Caracas in January was also denounced as illegal.
The Trump administration has also launched airstrikes against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing more than 200 people, in a move that United Nations human rights experts have warned is “extrajudicial and illegal.”
Under the Trump administration, the United States withdrew from international organizations and agreements, from the Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and the Paris climate accord during Trump’s first term, to more recently the World Health Organization and the United Nations Human Rights Council.
“What Trump is doing is obstructing justice,” Ross said of the ICC sanctions. “If you look at article 70 of the Rome Statute, it is a crime to threaten or intimidate a court official because of his official duties.”
“But the courts remain strong and very capable of doing their job,” he said, adding: “There is important work for courts to do to protect victims in places like Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan and the Philippines. This is work that must and will continue.”
