The Trump administration on Friday imposed sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court, which it believes operates against the US.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a video message, calling the ICC a “rogue court”.
The sanctions come hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize – an award that Trump has been seeking since he assumed office as President of the United States for the second time. They block any assets the ICC as an institution might have in US jurisdictions and set a six-month timeline for US companies and individuals that have business with the court to wind that business down. Pillay chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Navi Pillay , the South African jurist who served as a judge on the ICC’s Appeals Chamber from 2003-2008, had earlier warned of mounting political attacks on the court.
“We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us,” Rubio said in the video posted on X. He said Donald Trump will “never allow” the court to prosecute Americans, asserting that “the United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC. He said the US expects its allies, many of whom are part of the ICC, “to rein in this rogue court.”
