International Criminal Court condemns US sanctions

• The court called the measure an "unprecedented step" and urged its member states to help it keep working.

The International Criminal Court on Friday forcefully rejected sanctions imposed by the United States on the tribunal as an institution, calling the move an assault on the rule of law and appealing to its member nations to help it withstand the pressure.

In a statement, the court said Washington had taken an "unprecedented step" that followed earlier designations against thirteen judges and prosecutors. Those penalties had targeted individual officials. The new measure goes after the court as a whole.

The court described the sanctions as an attack on a body "created by treaty and entrusted by 125 States Parties with investigating and prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression." It said the measure was "an attempt to obstruct the course of justice and to prevent the Court from doing what it was created to do."

The statement went further, framing the sanctions as a threat to the broader legal order. It called them "an assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order which strikes at the simple principle that no one stands above the law." The court also said the designation was meant to disrupt its operations and "to intimidate those who work for or cooperate with the Court."

Despite that language, court officials signaled that the institution would carry on. The president of the court, Tomoko Akane, said in the statement: "The Court will continue to fully discharge its mandate, with independence and impartiality, acting only on the basis of the law and the evidence, for the sake of the countless victims of grave crimes."

But the court also acknowledged that it cannot weather the episode alone. "Its fate now rests also in the hands of the States that created it," the statement said, describing the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the tribunal, as "a collective promise" that the gravest crimes "must not go unpunished." That promise, it added, "is only as strong as the resolve of those who made it."

The court conceded that difficulties lie ahead, saying "there may be challenges," but said it and its member states had made "considerable efforts to ensure the continuity and resilience of its activities." It called on governments to take "concrete actions," including making sure the court "continues to have the necessary means to continue its work." The stakes, the statement said, extend beyond one institution. "This is not just about defending a single institution," it said, "but about safeguarding the international order grounded upon the rule of law."

The statement closed with an appeal to history. "No one should be punished for serving the cause of justice," it said, adding that future generations, "and above all the victims of mass atrocities, will ask how we responded when an institution created to protect them came under attack." They will want to know, it said, "whether the Court held firm and whether the international community defended the principles it proclaimed or allowed them to be abandoned under pressure."

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