The International Criminal Court (ICC) has condemned the United States’ sanctions against its president, Tomoko Akane, warning that targeting judicial officials for carrying out their duties threatens the international legal order.
The court made its position known in a statement on Tuesday after the US sanctioned Akane, a Japanese national, as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing pressure on the Hague-based court, which Washington accuses of being “politicised.”
The US also imposed sanctions on Abdoulaye Seye, a senior trial lawyer at the ICC.
The court said the sanctions targeted judges, prosecutors and other officials performing duties entrusted to them by member states.
“When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk,” the ICC said.
It added that measures targeting its officials “undermine the rule of law”.
Despite the sanctions, the ICC said it remained undeterred and would continue carrying out its mandate.
The court also said it stood firmly behind its personnel and victims of serious atrocities.
The sanctions bar the affected officials from entering the United States and restrict their access to transactions through the US financial system.
The latest action is linked largely to the ICC’s investigations involving Israel, a close US ally.
In 2024, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity connected to Israel’s war in Gaza.
The United States is not a member of the treaty that established the ICC but has previously imposed sanctions on several of the court’s officials.
