It seems few have remembered that Trump himself signed executive orders placing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hage
https://www.msn.com/en-us/crime/general/what-is-the-international-criminal-court-on-which-trump-placed-sanctions/ar-AA1yytxr
The Washington Post
What is the International Criminal Court, on which Trump placed sanctions?
Story by Sammy Westfall, Sarah Dadouch, Jacqueline Alemany • 10mo
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order placing sanctions on the International Criminal Court, a Hague-based court with 125 member states that has the power to investigate and try individuals charged with grave international crimes.
In the order, Trump accused the court of engaging in “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting the United States and “our close ally Israel.” He said the court has “abused its power” by issuing arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, contending it did so without proper jurisdiction.
Trump said any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute Americans and U.S. allies constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security and policy. The United States will impose “tangible and significant” consequences on those responsible for the “ICC’s transgressions,” which could include blocking property and assets, as well as suspending entry to the United States, he said.
What is the International Criminal Court?
The ICC is the only permanent international court that wields the power to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression and war crimes. The court says it is “participating in a global fight to end impunity.”
Based in The Hague and legally independent of the United Nations, the court was set up in 2002 after more than a decade of efforts to establish a permanent tribunal to hold individuals accountable for atrocities. Its founding treaty is the Rome Statute, against which only seven countries voted: Qatar, Yemen, Iraq, Israel, Libya, China and the United States. The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.
The push for such a court gained momentum after the conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Rwanda in the 1990s. Until the ICC was established, ad hoc temporary tribunals addressed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ICC is separate from the International Court of Justice, also based in The Hague, which is a judicial body of the United Nations that was established after World War II to settle disputes between countries.
The ICC has taken up 32 cases, some with more than one suspect, and its judges have issued 60 arrest warrants. Of those, some 21 people have been detained in the ICC detention center and have appeared before court, the ICC says. Thirty-one remain “at large,” according to the court. Some cases have been dropped because the accused died. ICC judges have issued 11 convictions and four acquittals.
Warrants have been issued for figures including Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, Sudanese authoritarian ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, who was convicted in 2012 of war crimes for conscripting child soldiers.
What measures has Trump taken against the ICC?
Trump and his administration were hostile toward the court during his first term in office, and have continued that stance.
“As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority,” Trump told the U.N. General Assembly in 2018. “We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.”
In March 2020, the ICC ruled that it could open investigations of possible war crimes in Afghanistan involving U.S. troops, as well as the Taliban and Afghan government forces.
Three months later, Trump signed an executive order authorizing sanctions against ICC prosecutors and officials. In his order, Trump said the court’s actions “threaten to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States.”
At the time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the ICC’s decision on Afghanistan “a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution masquerading as a legal body.” National security adviser John Bolton in September 2018 said that “for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.”
President Joe Biden lifted Trump’s sanctions in April of the year he took office, a more than two-month delay that raised questions among human rights groups.
How has the ICC responded to the Israel-Hamas war?
The ICC has been under the spotlight during the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” against top-ranking Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defense minister who oversaw much of the war in Gaza. It also issued a warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who has since been confirmed killed in Gaza.
The court said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel’s Netanyahu and Gallant were responsible for crimes during what he called the “total siege” of the Gaza Strip, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willful killing and murder, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population and extermination.
In the case of Hamas’s Deif, the court alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including those of “murder; extermination; torture; and rape,” as well as taking hostages. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan had also sought warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, but the courts issued warrants after they were killed.
Biden at the time called the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders “outrageous.” He said in a statement that “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”
Netanyahu called the ICC’s decision against him “antisemitic” and “a modern Dreyfus trial,” recalling the wrongful conviction of Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason in France in the 1890s.
The ICC does not control a police force and therefore depends on its 125 member states to carry out arrest warrants against those accused of mass crimes. Most European countries are party to the court’s statute and therefore have a legal obligation to arrest any individual for whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant. The ICC prohibits trying defendants in absentia, with some narrow exceptions. Ukraine became the most recent state party to the ICC in January.
Although Israel, like the United States, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, upon which the court was founded, arrest warrants can shroud leaders with stigmatization. Once warrants are issued, officials face the risk of arrest in signatory countries. However, there have been instances of member states ignoring them — such as in 2015, when South Africa did not arrest Sudan’s Bashir.
In January, the government of Poland, which is a state party to the ICC, adopted a resolution pledging the safe participation of top Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, who wanted to visit for the 80th anniversary commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz that month. Netanyahu did not end up attending the event.
In 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, alleging they bore individual responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion of the country. The decision sharply restricted Russian officials’ mobility in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.
How did the ICC and others react to Trump’s move?
“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, in all situations before it,” a statement released by the court said, following Trump’s executive order. It called on “civil society and all nations of the world to stand united for justice and fundamental human rights.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the ICC “must be able to freely pursue the fight against global impunity,” in a post on X. “Europe will always stand for justice and the respect of international law,” she said.
Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, a leading human rights advocacy group, described the decision as “vindictive” and “aggressive.”
Israel welcomed Trump’s order. Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign affairs minister said that the court “aggressively pursues the elected leaders of Israel.”
“The ICC’s actions are immoral and have no legal basis,” he wrote on X.United States will impose “tangible and significant” consequences on those responsible for the “ICC’s transgressions,” which could include blocking property and assets, as well as suspending entry to the United States, he said.
What is the International Criminal Court?
The ICC is the only permanent international court that wields the power to prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression and war crimes. The court says it is “participating in a global fight to end impunity.”
Based in The Hague and legally independent of the United Nations, the court was set up in 2002 after more than a decade of efforts to establish a permanent tribunal to hold individuals accountable for atrocities. Its founding treaty is the Rome Statute, against which only seven countries voted: Qatar, Yemen, Iraq, Israel, Libya, China and the United States. The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.
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The push for such a court gained momentum after the conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Rwanda in the 1990s. Until the ICC was established, ad hoc temporary tribunals addressed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ICC is separate from the International Court of Justice, also based in The Hague, which is a judicial body of the United Nations that was established after World War II to settle disputes between countries.
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The ICC has taken up 32 cases, some with more than one suspect, and its judges have issued 60 arrest warrants. Of those, some 21 people have been detained in the ICC detention center and have appeared before court, the ICC says. Thirty-one remain “at large,” according to the court. Some cases have been dropped because the accused died. ICC judges have issued 11 convictions and four acquittals.
Warrants have been issued for figures including Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, Sudanese authoritarian ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, who was convicted in 2012 of war crimes for conscripting child soldiers.
What measures has Trump taken against the ICC?
Trump and his administration were hostile toward the court during his first term in office, and have continued that stance.
“As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority,” Trump told the U.N. General Assembly in 2018. “We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.”
In March 2020, the ICC ruled that it could open investigations of possible war crimes in Afghanistan involving U.S. troops, as well as the Taliban and Afghan government forces.
Three months later, Trump signed an executive order authorizing sanctions against ICC prosecutors and officials. In his order, Trump said the court’s actions “threaten to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States.”
At the time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the ICC’s decision on Afghanistan “a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution masquerading as a legal body.” National security adviser John Bolton in September 2018 said that “for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.”
President Joe Biden lifted Trump’s sanctions in April of the year he took office, a more than two-month delay that raised questions among human rights groups.
How has the ICC responded to the Israel-Hamas war?
The ICC has been under the spotlight during the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” against top-ranking Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defense minister who oversaw much of the war in Gaza. It also issued a warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who has since been confirmed killed in Gaza.
The court said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel’s Netanyahu and Gallant were responsible for crimes during what he called the “total siege” of the Gaza Strip, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, willful killing and murder, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population and extermination.
In the case of Hamas’s Deif, the court alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including those of “murder; extermination; torture; and rape,” as well as taking hostages. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan had also sought warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, but the courts issued warrants after they were killed.
Biden at the time called the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders “outrageous.” He said in a statement that “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”
Netanyahu called the ICC’s decision against him “antisemitic” and “a modern Dreyfus trial,” recalling the wrongful conviction of Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason in France in the 1890s.
The ICC does not control a police force and therefore depends on its 125 member states to carry out arrest warrants against those accused of mass crimes. Most European countries are party to the court’s statute and therefore have a legal obligation to arrest any individual for whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant. The ICC prohibits trying defendants in absentia, with some narrow exceptions. Ukraine became the most recent state party to the ICC in January.
Although Israel, like the United States, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, upon which the court was founded, arrest warrants can shroud leaders with stigmatization. Once warrants are issued, officials face the risk of arrest in signatory countries. However, there have been instances of member states ignoring them — such as in 2015, when South Africa did not arrest Sudan’s Bashir.
In January, the government of Poland, which is a state party to the ICC, adopted a resolution pledging the safe participation of top Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, who wanted to visit for the 80th anniversary commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz that month. Netanyahu did not end up attending the event.
In 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, alleging they bore individual responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion of the country. The decision sharply restricted Russian officials’ mobility in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.
How did the ICC and others react to Trump’s move?
“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, in all situations before it,” a statement released by the court said, following Trump’s executive order. It called on “civil society and all nations of the world to stand united for justice and fundamental human rights.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the ICC “must be able to freely pursue the fight against global impunity,” in a post on X. “Europe will always stand for justice and the respect of international law,” she said.
Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, a leading human rights advocacy group, described the decision as “vindictive” and “aggressive.”
Israel welcomed Trump’s order. Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign affairs minister said that the court “aggressively pursues the elected leaders of Israel.”
“The ICC’s actions are immoral and have no legal basis,” he wrote on X.
Jacqueline Alemany, Victoria Craw and Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.
