International Criminal Court condemns US sanctions order
Published:Friday | June 12, 2020 | 10:14 AM
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court has condemned the Trump administration’s decision to authorise sanctions against court staff, saying it amounted to “an unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law and the Court’s judicial proceedings.”
An executive order by US President Donald Trump announced Thursday authorises sanctions against ICC staff investigating American troops and intelligence officials and those of allied nations, including Israel, for possible war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Trump’s order would block the financial assets of court employees and bar them and their immediate relatives from entering the United States.
The court, which has 123 member states, said in a statement released early Friday that it “stands firmly by its staff and officials and remains unwavering in its commitment to discharging, independently and impartially, the mandate” laid down in its founding treaty, the Rome Statute.
It said an attack on the Hague-based court also constitutes “an attack against the interests of victims of atrocity crimes, for many of whom the Court represents the last hope for justice.”
O-Gon Kwon, president of the court’s management and oversight mechanism, the Assembly of States Parties, also criticised the US measures.
“They undermine our common endeavour to fight impunity and to ensure accountability for mass atrocities,” he said in a statement. “I deeply regret measures targeting Court officials, staff and their families.”
The Hague-based court was created in 2002 to prosecute war crimes and crimes of humanity and genocide in places where perpetrators might not otherwise face justice.
The US has never been an ICC member.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday denounced the tribunal as a “kangaroo court” that has been unsuccessful and inefficient in prosecuting war crimes.
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