STRANGE TIMING: US imposes sanctions on ICC hours after South African judge wins Nobel Peace Prize

Hours after South Africa’s Navi Pillay, a former judge of the International Criminal Court, was named as this year’s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the US slapped sanctions on the court.

US President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday, 9 October, hours after one of ‌its former judges won the Nobel Peace Prize, South Africa’s Navi Pillay, putting Washington on a diplomatic collision course with European allies.

The ICC’s deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, condemned the sanctions and said they would not halt the tribunal's work.

The Trump administration has long been hostile to the court, which was founded in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and has previously imposed sanctions on its prosecutors and judges. Friday’s move would go far further, ​by potentially punishing companies that provide services to the court itself.

“President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio ​said in a statement, first published by Reuters.

“That is why, today, the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court. We will ban ⁠transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate.”

ICC deputy prosecutor Khan told Reuters the sanctions “must be condemned”.

“The sanctions are intended to undermine the ​rule of law internationally and the work that an independent judicial institution is doing,” Khan said. “Our work will continue across all our situations, our investigations and our prosecutions.”

Washington has denounced the ICC ​over arrest warrants issued for Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a past investigation into actions of US soldiers in Afghanistan, which the ICC says is “deprioritised”.

The court counts 125 countries as member states, including all EU countries and all members of the Nato alliance, apart from the US and Turkey. It has received strong public backing in the past from member countries including major US allies, and is based ​in the Netherlands, an EU and Nato member.

Navi Pillay, the South African jurist who won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier on Friday, had served as a judge on the ICC’s Appeals Chamber ​from 2003–2008. The prize committee said in its citation that in naming her it had sought to “issue a reminder” at a time when “judges and institutions of international law are under political attack”.

“An international legal system in ‌which war ⁠criminals are held to account and the victims of abuse see justice served is a precondition for a peaceful world,” the prize committee said.

Rubio said the sanctions had been structured to give the court and its member states an opportunity to address US concerns.

Washington immediately allowed some exemptions. Shortly after the sanctions were announced, the US Treasury issued four general licences, which would allow some transactions for ICC telecommunications, software and pension payments, and transactions linked to ICC detainees.