U.S. Sanctions ICC in a Bid to Avoid "Criminal Liability": War Crimes Prosecutor Reed Brody
The Trump administration placed sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court on Friday, targeting the institution as a whole. War crimes prosecutor Reed Brody calls the sanctions an "existential attack" on the court and describes them as "an insurance policy against accountability for crimes that the United States and its ally Israel are committing in plain sight."
The Trump administration on Friday placed sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court that target the institution as a whole. This comes on top of earlier sanctions against individual ICC judges and personnel. The administration has been escalating attacks on the ICC since the court issued arrest warrants in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. It announced the sanctions just hours after former ICC Judge Navi Pillay — the South African jurist who led the United Nations commission of inquiry that concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza — was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
"This is really an insurance policy against accountability for crimes that the United States and its ally Israel are committing in plain sight," says war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody, a member of the International Commission of Jurists. The sanctions, which prevent U.S.-based banks and companies from transacting with the ICC, constitute an "existential attack" on the court, he says.