U.S. hits International Criminal Court with sweeping sanctions as part of drive to dismantle tribunal

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has im­posed sweep­ing new sanc­tions on the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court as part of its cam­paign to dis­man­tle the tri­bunal over in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the Unit­ed States and its al­lies, in­clud­ing Is­rael.

Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio an­nounced the sanc­tions Fri­day, af­ter the No­bel Peace Prize was award­ed to South African ju­rist Navi Pil­lay, a for­mer judge at the ICC and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al courts. Trump has cov­et­ed that prize for him­self.

“We will ban trans­ac­tions with this rogue court, cut­ting off their re­sources and crip­pling its abil­i­ty to op­er­ate against us,” Ru­bio said in a video ad­dress post­ed to so­cial me­dia. “The Unit­ed States and the Amer­i­can peo­ple are not sub­ject to the ju­ris­dic­tion of this fake ICC.”

The sanc­tions cut the court off from U.S.-based fi­nan­cial ser­vices, tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and even us­ing U.S. dol­lars. They set a six-month time­line for U.S. com­pa­nies and in­di­vid­u­als that have busi­ness with the court to wind that busi­ness down.

The ICC de­nounced the step as an at­tack on the rule of law and the foun­da­tions of in­ter­na­tion­al or­der, themes that Ru­bio had ap­peared to em­brace on­ly two days ago in a speech in front of the Acrop­o­lis in Athens.

“It is an at­tempt to ob­struct the course of jus­tice and to pre­vent the court from do­ing what it was cre­at­ed to do,” the court said in a state­ment. “It is an as­sault on the rule of law and on the very foun­da­tions of the in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal or­der which strikes at the sim­ple prin­ci­ple that no one stands above the law.”

ICC Pres­i­dent Tomoko Akane, a cit­i­zen of U.S. al­ly Japan, said the court would “con­tin­ue to ful­ly dis­charge its man­date, with in­de­pen­dence and im­par­tial­i­ty, act­ing on­ly on the ba­sis of the law and the ev­i­dence, for the sake of the count­less vic­tims of grave crimes.”

She al­so ap­pealed to oth­er ICC mem­bers for sup­port. “This is not just about de­fend­ing a sin­gle in­sti­tu­tion, but about safe­guard­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al or­der ground­ed up­on the rule of law.”

Rights groups al­so de­nounced the sanc­tions.

“This ex­is­ten­tial at­tack must fail,” said Eri­ka Gue­vara Rosas, an Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al se­nior di­rec­tor. “States must take con­crete ac­tion to re­sist the im­po­si­tion of these mea­sures and ac­tive­ly pro­tect the Court.”

The court’s host coun­try of the Nether­lands has been prepar­ing for weeks for the move. One pos­si­ble mea­sure to mit­i­gate sanc­tions is the EU “block­ing statute,” which could be used to pro­tect Eu­ro­pean court staff by pre­vent­ing Eu­ro­pean com­pa­nies from com­ply­ing with the U.S. mea­sures. Dutch For­eign Min­is­ter Tom Berend­sen has called the block­ing statute the “nu­clear op­tion” in coun­ter­ing pos­si­ble sanc­tions, but said the Nether­lands has been in talks with the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion to en­sure that if it is nec­es­sary it can be quick­ly en­act­ed.

In a joint state­ment, Cana­da, Den­mark, Ger­many, France, Italy, Japan, the Nether­lands and the Unit­ed King­dom ex­pressed strong dis­agree­ment with the U.S. sanc­tions.

“We will con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er to sup­port the court’s vi­tal work, up­hold the rules-based in­ter­na­tion­al sys­tem, and ad­vance ac­count­abil­i­ty,” the state­ment said.

“If put in­to ef­fect, these sanc­tions will have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the court’s work, its ded­i­cat­ed staff and their fam­i­lies. They work every day to bring those ac­cused of the most se­ri­ous in­ter­na­tion­al crimes to jus­tice and to sup­port their vic­tims.”

Ru­bio said U.S. al­lies should join in the U.S. ac­tions.

“If they do not, the Unit­ed States will con­tin­ue its cam­paign to dis­man­tle the ICC, piece by piece, un­til Amer­i­cans are threat­ened no longer,” he said.

A num­ber of coun­tries have with­drawn from the court this year, in­clud­ing Venezuela and Chad. The South Pa­cif­ic is­land na­tion of Nao­ero was the most re­cent to an­nounce it would quit. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by MATTHEW LEE and MOL­LY QUELL | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Mol­ly Quell re­port­ed from The Hague, Nether­lands. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Mike Corder con­tributed from The Hague.