Last November, the court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant and several Hamas leaders at the same time. The Trump administration’s order says this has created a “shameful moral equivalence.”
After announcing his withdrawal from several international forums, Donald Trump has announced that he will sign an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court, accusing the international court of targeting the United States and Israel. The order will include financial sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC officials (including their families) who have participated in investigations of US citizens or allies. The expected signing of the order this afternoon appears to coincide with Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.
TRUMP’S DECISION
NBC News has published a fact sheet outlining the reasoning behind the order: “The ICC was created to be a court of last resort,” the executive order’s fact sheet states. “Both the United States and Israel maintain strong justice systems and should never be subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC.” Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed a bill to sanction the court, which was later blocked by Senate Democrats.
Neither Israel nor the United States recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, whose major flaw is that it lacks a police force to enforce its orders. Under the Rome Statute that created it, signatories are obligated to execute arrest warrants, regardless of the rank of the accused. But most governments also respect the international legal principle that heads of state are protected by legal immunity from other courts.
THE CONNECTION WITH NETANYAHU
Last November, the court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, and several Hamas leaders at the same time. The Trump administration’s order says this created a “shameful moral equivalence.” The move had sparked a storm of controversy not only because of the comparison between the Israeli leadership and that of Hamas, but also because of the complex application of the arrest warrant by Israel’s “friendly” countries, signatories to the Rome Statute. The court argued in its reasoning that Netanyahu and Gallant had used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid and deliberately targeting civilians in the Israeli campaign in Gaza, accusations that Israeli officials have dismissed as false and anti-Semitic.
“WAR” SINCE 2020
In June 2020, the Trump administration launched an attack on the International Criminal Court, authorizing economic sanctions against officials who investigate or prosecute U.S. personnel without Washington’s consent. The decision to impose sanctions on court officials came months after ICC appeals judges authorized an investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by U.S. military and intelligence personnel, Afghan forces, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Trump also authorized an extension of visa restrictions on ICC officials and their family members at the time.
LIST OF ARREST WARRANTIES
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, who is accused of being criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and the use of starvation as a weapon of war in the Gaza conflict. It also issued a warrant for Netanyahu’s former defense chief, Yoav Gallant, and for Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif.
Also on the list is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is accused of war crimes for illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. In March 2023, after the court issued the order, the Kremlin said the move was meaningless. Moscow has consistently denied allegations that its forces committed atrocities during the invasion of Ukraine. In recent months, the ICC prosecutor has also sought arrest warrants for senior Afghan and Myanmar leaders, but they have not been formally approved by the judges.
