Trump’s sanctions could ‘destroy’ the ICC, insiders fear

Officials at the International Criminal Court say the body is planning for ‘worst case scenario’ ahead of sanctions by both the U.S. Congress and the White House, fearing the moves could constitute an existential threat to the court.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, coupled with punitive measures sought by Congress, could pose an “existential threat” to the International Criminal Court, according to a report by The Guardian which cited multiple court officials.

The ICC, a tribunal established by the Rome Statue in The Hague, has for months faced blowback over its November, 2023 decision to issue international arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Likud) over their role in the war against the Hamas terror organization following the October 7th, 2023 invasion.

Last summer, even prior to the final issuing of the warrants, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed legislation sanctioning senior ICC officials, barring their entry to the United States and preventing them from conducting transactions with American financial institutions.

While the Democratic-majority Senate blocked the bill from moving forward last year, the upper chamber’s new Republican Majority Leader has vowed to ensure the resubmitted bill’s passage.

According to ICC officials cited in the Guardian report, however, the court is even more concerned with steps President Donald Trump could take independently of Congress.

The sources said that the sanctions sought by Congress, targeting senior ICC officials, would pose challenges for the court, but would ultimately be manageable.

But officials in the ICC are also planning for what some called the “worst case scenario,” in which Trump issues executive orders targeting the ICC as an institution, rather than singling out senior ICC members.

“The concern is the sanctions will be used to shut the court down, to destroy it rather than just tie its hands,” one ICC official told The Guardian.

Barring American banks, insurers, or telecommunications and tech companies from working with the ICC could potentially cripple the court, ICC officials fretted.

Tech giant Microsoft’s partnership with the ICC is one example of the court’s potential vulnerability to broad American sanctions.

Should Trump sign a sweeping order targeting all cooperation by American companies with the ICC, the court could lose access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, used for virtually of the court’s data storage needs.

“We essentially store all of our evidence in the cloud,” one official said.

Trump already reimposed more narrowly focused sanctions on some ICC officials, by striking down an executive order issued by Joe Biden rescinding a 2020 Trump order penned in response to an ICC bid to probe Americans involved in the Afghanistan war.

But the Trump administration is reportedly seeking broader and tougher sanctions on the ICC over its November arrest warrants, as a means of punishing the court for stepping out of its jurisdiction over member states bound by the Rome Statute.

Both the U.S. and Israel are non-member states, and have warned the ICC not to impose itself on countries which are not signatories to the Rome Statute.