Trump misses out on Nobel Prize again and imposes new sanctions on the International Criminal Court. What does it mean?

Rumours have been circulating for weeks about the United States imposing tougher sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), because of what US President Donald Trump sees as unfair targeting of Americans and Israelis for prosecution.

These sanctions finally came into effect on October 9 – the same day South African jurist Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to international law.

The motivations behind these two diametrically opposing moves speak to the fragility of international law.

They also highlight that ICC member states – including Australia, Japan, EU states and Canada – might need to decide between Trump’s program to dismantle the ICC “ brick by brick ” and their own commitments to international justice.

A long enmity The US has never been a strong supporter of the ICC.

While it took part in negotiations that created the court’s founding treaty in 1998, it did so partly to ensure the crime of aggression remained off the court’s remit for decades.

Former president Bill Clinton did sign the Rome Statute in 1998, but it was never ratified.

George W.

Bush removed this possibility in 2002.

Congress went further later the same year by passing the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act (ASPA) (aka “the Hague invasion act”).

The concern here was to ensure no US citizen could fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction.

The US has since entered into many bilateral agreements, including with ICC member states, to ensure US nationals are not handed over to The Hague.

Afghanistan accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction in 2003.

In 2017, prosecutor Fatou Bensouda called for a full investigation that included allegations of CIA torture in “black sites” in Poland, Romania and Lithuania.