The ICC has expressed concern over the Trump administration’s campaign to encourage countries to withdraw from the court, asserting that such countries risked undermining the collective pursuit of justice.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has lashed out at the United States after the Trump administration added its chief and one of its senior lawyers to a list of sanctioned individuals, calling the move a “flagrant attack” on the court’s independence.
The ICC’s reaction on Wednesday came in response to the US imposing sanctions on ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, as part of its campaign against what it calls a “corrupt and fatally politicised body”.
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Akane, a Japanese judge, has served as the ICC’s president since her election in March 2024. Seye is a Senegalese lawyer at the court.
“These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution,” The Hague-based court said in a statement.
“Such measures targeting judges, prosecutors and staff … undermine the rule of law.”
Washington’s latest move follows sanctions it imposed on several ICC officials, largely in response to the court’s investigations involving US ally Israel.
Japan also objected to the sanctions, saying it has “consistently supported the ICC … in its efforts to prosecute and punish the most serious crimes of concern to the international community and to uphold the rule of law,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs press secretary Toshihiro Kitamura said in a statement.
Japan is the ICC’s biggest funder and a close US ally.
The European Union also threw its support behind Akane.
In twin statements on social media, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council head Antonio Costa said they “stand firmly” with Akane and top officials, who “must be able to act independently and without external pressure”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier said in a statement, without providing examples, that the sanctioned “individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”.
The ICC responded in a statement on Tuesday, saying, “When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk.”
Established in 2002, the ICC prosecutes individuals accused of the gravest atrocities and acts as a last resort when countries do not have adequate legal systems to ensure accountability.
The Trump administration has already imposed sanctions against officials of the ICC, which issued in 2024 an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the genocidal war in Gaza.
The measures bar them from entering the US and from carrying out transactions in the US financial system.
Last month, Washington launched a major diplomatic offensive against the ICC, accusing it of “threatening” US citizens and calling on partners to withdraw from the body – a move already announced by Chad and Venezuela.
The ICC expressed concern over those withdrawals, asserting that such countries risked undermining the collective pursuit of justice.
The US signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC but never ratified the treaty. Israel and Russia are not ICC members either.
Last week, four human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, sued US President Donald Trump in a New York court over his sanctions targeting the ICC, saying the measures block victims of war crimes from pursuing justice.
In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, prompting Moscow to issue its own arrest warrants for senior court officials, including Akane.
