US expands sanctions targeting International Criminal Court

United States expands attacks connected International Criminal Court amid increasing scrutiny implicit Israeli abuses successful Gaza.

The United States has announced a caller circular of sanctions targeting members of the International Criminal Court, the latest lawsuit of a pressure campaign against the tribunal that antecedently issued apprehension warrants for Israeli leaders implicit alleged warfare crimes successful Gaza.

In a connection connected Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that 2 judges and 2 prosecutors were being added to a database of ICC members sanctioned by the medication of President Donald Trump.

“The Court is simply a nationalist information menace that has been an instrumentality for lawfare against the United States and our adjacent state Israel,” Rubio said successful a statement.

The ICC antecedently issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and erstwhile Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged warfare crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a connection connected Wednesday, Netanyahu welcomed the caller sanctions arsenic a “decisive enactment against a smear run of lies against the State of Israel”.

The caller sanctions people Kimberly Prost of Canada, Nicolas Guillou of France, Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal.

Guillou is an ICC justice who oversaw a pre-trial sheet that issued the apprehension warrant for Netanyahu, portion Khan and Niang are the court’s 2 lawman prosecutors. The US Department of State cites the relation each 3 played successful issuing and upholding the Israeli apprehension warrants.

The ICC is besides probing imaginable warfare crimes by US forces successful Afghanistan, though it said it volition prioritise abuses by the Taliban and ISIL (ISIS) successful that probe aft fierce US pushback.

Prost, according to the State Department announcement, is being sanctioned for “ruling to authorize the ICC’s probe into US unit successful Afghanistan”.

Neither the US nor Israel is simply a enactment to the ICC, but the tribunal maintains it tin contented apprehension warrants for citizens of specified countries due to the fact that the places successful which the alleged crimes took spot are parties to the court.

The US has been a longtime professional of the ICC and has bristled astatine the imaginable that its ain officials could someday look prosecution for alleged warfare crimes, but nether erstwhile administrations had stopped abbreviated of utmost steps, specified arsenic sanctions.

An archetypal circular of sanctions targeting respective ICC officials by the Trump medication earlier this twelvemonth met widespread condemnation and disapproval that the US was undermining planetary instrumentality to support a adjacent ally. The US accused those officials of taking portion successful “illegitimate and baseless actions” against Israel and the US.

Two of the individuals sanctioned connected Wednesday are from France and Canada, 2 countries among respective that precocious announced that they would recognise a Palestinian authorities successful effect to Israel’s abuses successful Gaza and continuous efforts to prehend lands successful the occupied West Bank done the expulsion of Palestinian residents.

France expressed “dismay” astatine the astir caller circular of US sanctions.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies