Donald Trump has signed an govt order that authorises aggressive financial sanctions in opposition to the worldwide legal court docket (ICC), accusing the physique of “illegitimate and baseless actions” concentrating on the US and Israel.
The order grants the US president broad powers to impose asset freezes and journey bans in opposition to ICC employees and their relations if the US determines that they’re concerned in efforts to analyze or prosecute residents of the US and sure allies.
The hostile motion in opposition to the ICC is available in response to the court docket’s resolution in November to subject arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former protection minister Yoav Gallant for alleged struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity in Gaza.
Within the order, Trump mentioned the ICC had “abused its energy” by issuing the warrants which he claimed had “set a harmful precedent” that endangered US residents and its navy personnel.
“This malign conduct in flip threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of america and undermines the vital nationwide safety and international coverage work of america authorities and our allies, together with Israel,” he added.
Neither the US nor Israel are member states of the ICC, a everlasting court docket of final resort for the prosecution of people accused of atrocities. In his order, Trump argued the court docket should “respect the choice” of nations “to not topic their personnel to the ICC’s jurisdiction”.
Trump mentioned the US “will impose tangible and vital penalties on these liable for the ICC’s transgressions” together with by blocking property and belongings and suspending entry into the US of ICC officers and their relations.
It was unclear if the Trump administration would announce the names of particular people focused by the sanctions. ICC officers have ready for sanctions to influence senior figures on the court docket together with its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.
On Thursday, ICC officers had been working late into the night time awaiting information from Washington in regards to the scope of the sanctions and which of its officers could be individually focused.
The signing of the order comes days after Trump met with the Israeli prime minister within the Oval Workplace. Netanyahu was nonetheless in Washington on Thursday, when he spent a few of the day assembly with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Final week, a invoice that may have imposed sweeping sanctions in opposition to the ICC was stalled within the Senate after Democrats refused to assist the laws.
Responding to Trump’s transfer, the secretary normal of Amnesty Worldwide, Agnès Callamard, mentioned the order “sends the message that Israel is above the legislation and the common rules of worldwide justice”.
“Right now’s govt order is vindictive. It’s aggressive. It’s a brutal step that seeks to undermine and destroy what the worldwide neighborhood has painstakingly constructed over a long time, if not centuries: world guidelines which can be relevant to everybody and goal to ship justice for all,” she added.
Different activists mentioned sanctioning court docket officers would have a chilling impact and run counter to US pursuits in different battle zones the place the court docket is investigating.
“Victims of human rights abuses around the globe flip to the worldwide legal court docket once they have nowhere else to go, and President Trump’s govt order will make it more durable for them to seek out justice,” mentioned Charlie Hogle, employees lawyer with American Civil Liberties Union’s Nationwide Safety Challenge.
“The order additionally raises critical First Modification considerations as a result of it places individuals in america vulnerable to harsh penalties for serving to the court docket establish and examine atrocities dedicated anyplace, by anybody.”
After ICC judges issued the arrest warrants in opposition to Netanyahu and Gallant in November, the court docket had been bracing itself for retaliatory strikes by the Trump administration.
Officers on the court docket, which is headquartered within the Hague within the Netherlands, concern the sanctions may pose an existential menace to the judicial physique, which was established in 2002 and has 125 member states which have ratified its founding statute.
A number of ICC sources advised the Guardian final month that sanctions in opposition to senior court docket figures could be troublesome however manageable, however institution-wide sanctions would pose an existential menace to the judicial physique as they’d block its entry to companies it is dependent upon to operate.
The order signed by Trump on Thursday suggests the US will goal particular people listed in an annex to doc, nonetheless it was not instantly clear which people had been included.
In 2020, below a separate however comparable govt order, Trump imposed journey bans and asset freezes in opposition to the ICC’s former prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, who’s Gambian, and one in every of her high officers.
The measures had been launched in response to choices made by Bensouda in struggle crimes investigations in Afghanistan and the occupied Palestinian territories. On the time, Bensouda was conducting a preliminary inquiry into allegations of crimes dedicated by Israel’s armed forces and Hamas.
In 2021, Bensouda upgraded the case to a proper legal investigation. The present prosecutor, Karim Khan, inherited the inquiry and later accelerated it after the Hamas-led 7 October assaults and Israel’s ensuing bombardment of Gaza.
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