The International Criminal Court has strongly rejected new sanctions announced by the United States against its judges and prosecutors in a renewed push surrounding investigations into U.S. and Israeli officials.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of State imposed new sanctions on two judges and two prosecutors of ICC for engaging in efforts to prosecute US and Israeli citizens.
The U.S. sanctions target Trial Division judges Kimberly Prost and Nicolas Yann Guillou, and Deputy Prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang.
Prost is designated for ruling to authorize the ICC's investigation into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, the State Department said. Guillou was designated for ruling to authorize the ICC's issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.
"Deputy Prosecutors Shameem Khan and Niang are being designated for continuing to support illegitimate ICC actions against Israel, including upholding the ICC's arrest warrants targeting Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant since they assumed leadership for the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor," the State Department said in a press release.
This is in addition to earlier US sanctions against four other ICC judges and a prosecutor.
In a statement announcing the new round of sanctions, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the ICC "is a national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel."
The UN-backed court denounced the sanctions as "a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution".
Furthermore, "they constitute also an affront against the Court's States Parties, the rules-based international order and, above all, millions of innocent victims across the world."
The court, based in The Hague, investigates the gravest crimes of concern to the international community, namely genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.
Last November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, together with a former Hamas commander, in connection with the conflict in Gaza, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It is also probing war crimes allegedly committed in Afghanistan by all sides during years of conflict, including the US, following the allied invasion of the country in May 2003.
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