WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an govt order imposing sanctions on the Worldwide Prison Court docket over investigations of Israel, a detailed U.S. ally.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a member of or acknowledges the court docket, which has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged struggle crimes over his military response in Gaza after the Hamas assault towards Israel in October 2023. Tens of hundreds of Palestinians, together with kids, have been killed in the course of the Israeli navy’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” towards Netanyahu and his former protection minister, Yoav Gallant.
“The ICC has no jurisdiction over the USA or Israel,” the order states, including that the court docket had set a “harmful precedent” with its actions towards each nations.
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.
The order says the U.S. will impose “tangible and important penalties” on these chargeable for the ICC’s “transgressions.” Actions might embrace blocking property and belongings and never permitting ICC officers, staff and kinfolk to enter the USA.
Human rights activists stated sanctioning court docket officers would have a chilling impact and run counter to U.S. pursuits in different battle zones the place the court docket is investigating.
“Victims of human rights abuses world wide flip to the Worldwide Prison Court docket after 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 lawyer with American Civil Liberties Union’s Nationwide Safety Mission. “The order additionally raises critical First Modification considerations as a result of it places folks in the USA liable to harsh penalties for serving to the court docket establish and examine atrocities dedicated anyplace, by anybody.”
Hogle stated the order “is an assault on each accountability and free speech.”
“You may disagree with the court docket and the best way 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 court docket’s 124 members and has lengthy harbored suspicions {that a} “World Court docket” of unelected judges may arbitrarily prosecute U.S. officers. A 2002 regulation authorizes the Pentagon to liberate any American or U.S. ally held by the court docket. In 2020, Trump sanctioned chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, over her resolution to open an inquiry into struggle crimes dedicated by all sides, together with the U.S., in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, these sanctions had been lifted underneath 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 struggle 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 court docket’s fiercest critics.
Now, Graham says he feels betrayed by Khan — and is vowing to crush the court docket in addition to the financial system of any nation that tries to implement the arrest warrant towards Netanyahu.
“This can be a rogue court docket. This can be a kangaroo court docket,” Graham stated in an interview in December. “There are locations the place the court docket makes good sense. Russia is a failed state. Folks fall out of home windows. However I by no means in my wildest goals imagined they’d go after Israel, which has one of the vital impartial authorized techniques on the planet.”
“The authorized concept they’re utilizing towards Israel has no limits and we’re subsequent,” he added.
Biden had referred to as the warrants an abomination, and Trump’s nationwide safety adviser, Mike Waltz, has accused the court docket of getting an antisemitic bias.
Any sanctions may cripple the court docket by making it tougher for its investigators to journey and by compromising U.S.-developed expertise to safeguard proof. The court docket final 12 months suffered a serious cyberattack that left staff unable to entry recordsdata for weeks.
Some European nations are pushing again. The Netherlands, in a press release late final 12 months, referred to as on different ICC members “to cooperate to mitigate dangers of those potential sanctions, in order that the court docket 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 court docket as a tribunal of final resort to prosecute the world’s worst atrocities — struggle crimes, crimes towards humanity and genocide — if particular person governments didn’t take motion.
The U.S. voted towards 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.
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When George W. Bush turned president in 2001, he successfully canceled the U.S. signature and led a marketing campaign to stress nations 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.
