US imposes sanctions on UN International Criminal Court president

The United States (US) has imposed sanctions on the president and one of the senior prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last night.

This intensifies the US sanctions campaign against the United Nations court based in The Hague, the British agency Reuters reported.

Since last year, the administration of US President Donald Trump has imposed a series of sanctions on ICC officials, including prosecutors and judges, condemning arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.

Washington also criticizes the ICC, whose legitimacy the US does not recognize, for investigating alleged abuses by the US military in Afghanistan.

Rubio said last month that the Trump administration was launching an "initiative" aimed at dismantling the ICC, a court he described as a "threat to American sovereignty."

Rubio announced last night the imposition of sanctions against Japanese Judge Tomoko Akane, the president of the ICC, and Senegalese Judge Abdoulaye Seyyeh, the court's senior prosecutor, under an executive order signed by Donald Trump last year authorizing such measures.

“These individuals have directly led the ICC’s efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute officials whose governments do not consent to the ICC’s jurisdiction,” Rubio said.

The sanctions, announced by the US Treasury Department, freeze any assets held in the US and essentially cut off access to the US financial system, with which most internationally operating banks have close ties.

Three ICC judges filed a lawsuit last June against Trump and his administration to challenge the sanctions imposed on them, condemning the measures as illegal.

Washington sees the ICC as a threat to US forces tasked with enforcing Donald Trump's aggressive anti-immigration policies on the ground, as well as carrying out raids off the Caribbean coast on ships accused of being linked to drug trafficking - raids whose legality is disputed by experts.

Trump has previously said that the measures taken by his administration against the ICC were aimed at protecting Netanyahu and other officials.

Although the US has never joined the ICC, the court has the authority to prosecute war crimes committed on the territory of member states by citizens of non-member states.