WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an Government Order imposing sanctions on the Worldwide Legal Courtroom over investigations of Israel, a detailed U.S. ally.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a member of or acknowledges the courtroom, which has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged battle crimes over his army response in Gaza after the Hamas assault in opposition to Israel in October 2023. Tens of 1000’s of Palestinians, together with youngsters, have been killed throughout the Israeli army’s response.
The order Trump signed accuses the ICC of partaking in “illegitimate and baseless actions concentrating on America and our shut ally Israel” and of abusing its energy by issuing “baseless arrest warrants” in opposition to Netanyahu and his former protection minister, Yoav Gallant.
“The ICC has no jurisdiction over america or Israel,” the order states, including that the courtroom had set a “harmful precedent” with its actions in opposition to each international locations.
Trump’s motion got here as Netanyahu was visiting Washington. He and Trump held talks Tuesday on the White Home, and Netanyahu spent a few of Thursday assembly with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
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The order says the U.S. will impose “tangible and vital penalties” on these liable for the ICC’s “transgressions.” Actions could embrace blocking property and property and never permitting ICC officers, staff and kinfolk to enter america.
Human rights activists stated sanctioning courtroom officers would have a chilling impact and run counter to U.S. pursuits in different battle zones the place the courtroom is investigating.
“Victims of human rights abuses world wide flip to the Worldwide Legal Courtroom once they have nowhere else to go, and President Trump’s govt order will make it tougher for them to search out justice,” stated Charlie Hogle, employees legal professional with American Civil Liberties Union’s Nationwide Safety Venture. “The order additionally raises critical First Modification issues as a result of it places individuals in america liable to harsh penalties for serving to the courtroom establish and examine atrocities dedicated wherever, by anybody.”
Hogle stated the order “is an assault on each accountability and free speech.”
“You’ll be able to disagree with the courtroom and the way in which it operates, however that is past the pale,” Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, stated in an interview previous to the announcement.
Like Israel, the U.S. just isn’t among the many courtroom’s 124 members and has lengthy harbored suspicions {that a} “International Courtroom” of unelected judges may arbitrarily prosecute U.S. officers. A 2002 legislation authorizes the Pentagon to liberate any American or U.S. ally held by the courtroom. In 2020, Trump sanctioned chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, over her choice to open an inquiry into battle crimes dedicated by all sides, together with the U.S., in Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, these sanctions have been lifted below President Joe Biden, and the U.S. started to tepidly cooperate with the tribunal—particularly after Khan in 2023 charged Russian President Vladimir Putin with battle crimes in Ukraine.
Driving that turnaround was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who organized conferences in Washington, New York and Europe between Khan and GOP lawmakers who’ve been among the many courtroom’s fiercest critics.
Now, Graham says he feels betrayed by Khan—and is vowing to crush the courtroom in addition to the economic system of any nation that tries to implement the arrest warrant in opposition to Netanyahu.
“This can be a rogue courtroom. This can be a kangaroo courtroom,” Graham stated in an interview in December. “There are locations the place the courtroom makes excellent sense. Russia is a failed state. Individuals fall out of home windows. However I by no means in my wildest desires imagined they might go after Israel, which has one of the impartial authorized techniques on the planet.”
“The authorized idea they’re utilizing in opposition to Israel has no limits and we’re subsequent,” he added.
Biden had known as the warrants an abomination, and Trump’s nationwide safety adviser, Mike Waltz, has accused the courtroom of getting an antisemitic bias.
Any sanctions may cripple the courtroom by making it tougher for its investigators to journey and by compromising U.S.-developed know-how to safeguard proof. The courtroom final 12 months suffered a serious cyberattack that left staff unable to entry recordsdata for weeks.
Some European international locations are pushing again. The Netherlands, in a press release late final 12 months, known as on different ICC members “to cooperate to mitigate dangers of those doable sanctions, in order that the courtroom can proceed to hold out its work and fulfil its mandate.”
The U.S. relationship with the ICC is a sophisticated one. America participated in negotiations that led to the adoption of the Rome Statute that established the courtroom as a tribunal of final resort to prosecute the world’s worst atrocities—battle crimes, crimes in opposition to humanity and genocide—if particular person governments didn’t take motion.
The U.S. voted in opposition to the Rome Statute in 1998. Then-U.S. President Invoice Clinton signed the statute in 2000 however didn’t ship the treaty to the U.S. Senate to be ratified.
When George W. Bush turned President in 2001, he successfully canceled the U.S. signature and led a marketing campaign to stress international locations to enter bilateral agreements to not hand over Individuals to the ICC.
—Goodman reported from Miami. AP U.N. Correspondent Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report.
