Transparency & Accountability
Washington sanctioned the ICC's president, bringing nine of eighteen judges under sanction
Image credit: International Criminal Court headquarters, The Hague — Wikimedia Commons / Hypergio, CC BY-SA 4.0 · License
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The United States has placed the president of the International Criminal Court under sanctions, and the court responded by publishing the arithmetic: half of its bench is now designated by a single government.
The designations, announced on 18 August, name Tomoko Akane of Japan, the court's president, and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, a senior lawyer in the prosecutor's office. Both were listed under the executive order President Donald Trump issued in February 2025 against officials of the court.
Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said the two "have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction".
The court called the move "a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution", said the designations undermine the rule of law, and said it would continue its work. Japan called the sanctioning of its national very regrettable.
The court also set out the running total: nine of its eighteen judges, both deputy prosecutors, the former prosecutor and one staff member have now been sanctioned by the United States.
What it means for the Palestine file#
The court's Palestine investigation is the reason this campaign exists in its current form. Its Pre-Trial Chamber issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant over alleged crimes in Gaza, and the sanctions programme began weeks later.
Sanctions do not withdraw a warrant. They work on the people who administer it — freezing assets, cutting access to American financial and software services, and making ordinary court business, from travel to contracting, a legal hazard for anyone who touches it.
For Palestinian claimants, the practical question is whether a judge or a prosecutor can still be found to move a file forward. That is the pressure point, and the court's tally is the measure of how hard it is being pressed.
The challenge already filed#
Human Rights Watch and partner organisations filed suit on 11 August against the sanctions programme, arguing it punishes people for lawful judicial work.
Kanae Doi, the organisation's Japan director, said the latest designations are "an affront to victims around the world and a naked attempt to shield American and Israeli officials implicated in serious crimes from justice".
Palestinian readers following both courts in The Hague should keep them apart. The genocide case brought by South Africa is at the International Court of Justice, which hears disputes between states. The warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, and the officials Washington has now sanctioned, belong to the International Criminal Court, which tries individuals.
