THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Judges and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are trying to live and work under the same U.S. financial and travel restrictions brought against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Osama bin Laden.
Nine staff members, including six judges and the ICC’s chief prosecutor, have been sanctioned by U.S. President Donald Trump for pursuing investigations into officials from the U.S. and Israel, which aren’t among The Hague court’s 125 member states.
Typically reserved for autocrats, crime bosses and the like, the sanctions can be devastating. They prevent the ICC officials and their families from entering the United States, block their access to even basic financial services and extend to the minutiae of their everyday lives.
The court’s top prosecutor, British national Karim Khan, had his bank accounts closed and his U.S. visa revoked, and Microsoft even canceled his ICC email address. Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, who was named in the latest round of sanctions in August, immediately lost access to her credit cards, and Amazon’s Alexa stopped responding to her.
“Your whole world is restricted,” Prost told The Associated Press last week.
Prost had an inkling of what would happen when she made the list. Before joining the ICC in 2017, she worked on sanctions for the U.N. Security Council. She was targeted by the Trump administration for voting to allow the court’s investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan, including by American troops and intelligence operatives.
“I’ve worked all my life in criminal justice, and now I’m on a list with those implicated in terrorism and organized crime,” she said.
How the sanctions work
The sanctions have taken their toll on the court’s work across a broad array of investigations at a time when the institution is juggling ever more demands on its resources and a leadership crisis centered on Khan. Earlier this year, he stepped aside pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct. He denies the allegations.
How companies comply with sanctions can be unpredictable. Businesses and individuals risk substantial U.S. fines and prison time if they provide sanctioned people with “financial, material, or technological support,” forcing many to stop working with them.
The sanctions’ effects can be sweeping and even surprising.
Shortly after she was listed, Prost bought an e-book, “The Queen’s Necklace” by Antál Szerb, only to later find it had disappeared from her device.
“It’s the uncertainty,” she said. “They are small annoyances, but they accumulate.”
Staff worry about their families
Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, a sanctioned Peruvian judge who was involved in the same Afghanistan decision as Prost, told the AP that the problems are “not only for me, but also for my daughters,” who can no longer attend work conferences in the U.S.
Deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan echoed her colleagues’ concerns, saying “You’re never quite sure when your card is not working somewhere, whether this is just a glitch or whether this is the sanction.”
Meanwhile the staffers, some of whom also face arrest warrants in Russia, are worried that Washington might sanction the entire ICC, rendering it unable to pay employees, provide financial assistance to protected witnesses or even keep the lights on.
The ICC was established in 2002 as the world’s permanent court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. It only takes action when nations are unable or unwilling to prosecute those crimes on their territory.
The court has no police force and relies on member states to execute arrest warrants, making it very unlikely that any U.S. or Israeli official would end up in the dock. But those wanted by the court, like Putin, can risk arrest when traveling abroad or after leaving office — the ICC took custody this year of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is accused of crimes against humanity for his deadly anti-drugs crackdowns.
The Trump administration’s rationale
When explaining Trump’s executive order sanctioning the ICC in February, the White House said the move was in response to the “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
“The United States will not tolerate efforts to violate our sovereignty or to wrongfully subject U.S. or Israeli persons to the ICC’s unjust jurisdiction,” Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, said in response to questions from the AP.
There is little the staff can do to get the sanctions lifted. Sanctions imposed during the first Trump administration against the previous prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, weren’t removed until Joe Biden became president.
Ibáñez, a former prosecutor in Peru, vowed that the sanctions wouldn’t have any impact on her judicial activities in The Hague. “In my country, I prosecuted terrorists and drug lords. I will continue my work,” she said.
Prost, too, is defiant, saying the sanctioned staff “are absolutely undeterred and unfettered.”
