US announces sanctions on ICC, hours after Nobel award to former judge

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States (US) on Friday announced sanctions on the International Criminal Court, vowing to cripple the tribunal's operations just hours after the Nobel Peace Prize went to a former ICC judge who warned of mounting political attacks on the court.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would ban transactions with what he called a "rogue court," escalating a long-running campaign by President Donald Trump's administration against the Hague-based tribunal.

"Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC," Rubio said in a statement.

But the immediate impact of the sanctions was softened by a series of exemptions that offer a de facto six-month grace period.

The State Department said that was meant to give the court's member states time to show "meaningful progress" toward addressing US concerns.

The grace period could be adjusted depending on the "success or failure" of those efforts, the department added.

The court rejected the US sanctions as an attack on international law and warned in a statement that "history will judge this moment."

Countries including Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom said in a joint statement that they "strongly disagree" with the announcement.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the US decision "a serious blow to our collective pursuit of international criminal justice, of which the ICC is a key pillar."

The European Union called the sanctions "deeply regrettable" and said it was "ready to take any necessary measures to enable the court to carry out its work."

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said it hoped the six-month delay meant "there is room for dialogue."

Rights group Amnesty International urged countries to "resist" the move, saying the sanctions were "designed to isolate and ultimately destroy" the court.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an ICC arrest warrant over alleged crimes in Gaza, praised the US action.

"The ICC is not a court. It is a political body that poses a mortal threat to law-abiding democracies worldwide and to the very idea of national sovereignty," his office posted on X.

The move came on the same day the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to South Africa’s Navi Pillay, an 85-year-old jurist who headed the Rwanda genocide tribunal, served on the ICC and later led a UN commission that accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.

Rubio's statement did not mention Pillay or the Nobel award.

He said the sanctions were needed to protect security personnel and elected officials from prosecution by a court the United States has never joined.

"President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans," Rubio said, adding that the measures would cut off the court's resources and cripple "its ability to operate."

The top US diplomat said Washington had for more than a year spelled out "basic gestures of good faith" it expected from the court, and had held off on the designation in hopes that the ICC or its member states would change course.

He said no "meaningful steps" had been taken to address US concerns.

Rubio also called on US allies that belong to the court and "rely on American service members for their defense" to rein it in, warning that otherwise Washington would keep working to dismantle the ICC "brick by brick."

The Trump administration had already sanctioned 17 people linked to the court, including its prosecutor and several judges, over the ICC's investigations involving the United States and Israel, which is also not a member.

Trump last month called on all ICC member states to quit the body, denouncing it as "out of control" and a "rogue institution."