Donald Trump has signed an executive order authorising economic sanctions against the international criminal court (ICC) as he accused the body of “illegitimate and baseless actions” by targeting America and Israel.
The order leaves the way clear for the US president to impose asset freezes and travel bans against ICC staff and their family members if they are deemed to have been responsible for such actions.
In the latest hardline order, Trump said the ICC had “abused its power” by issuing the warrants which he claimed had “set a dangerous precedent” that endangered US citizens and its military personnel.
“This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States government and our allies, including Israel,” added the order.
The ICC hit back on Friday saying:“The ICC condemns the issuance by the US of an executive order seeking to impose sanctions on its officials and harm its independent and impartial judicial work.
“The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” a statement from the court, based in The Hague, added.
Building of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in 2019. (Wikipedia/Author OSeveno/ Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0))
Last November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Neither Israel nor the US are member states of the ICC.
Trump argued the court must “respect the decision” of countries “not to subject their personnel to the ICC’s jurisdiction”.
The president has yet to announce names of those targeted by the sanctions, but reports said ICC officials had feared chief prosecutor Karim Khan could be one individual.
Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar said he would “strongly commend” Trump for “imposing sanctions on the so-called ‘international criminal court’”.
Saar said the ICC’s actions have been “immoral and have no legal basis”.
