ANALYSIS

Six months for the Court: Washington sanctions the entire ICC and opens a negotiation over its independence

10 October 2026 — United States / Netherlands / International Criminal Court

Series “The Court under siege” · 5 of 6

On Friday morning in Oslo, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the Peace Prize and had to ask the winner from the podium to answer her phone if she saw a call from a Norwegian number: they had not managed to reach her (CBS News). The winner was Navi Pillay, 85, a South African jurist, a former judge of the International Criminal Court and later UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In the afternoon, in Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a video: the United States was sanctioning the Court where Pillay had served. Two pieces of news on the same day, about the same Court.

The facts

On 9 October the State Department designated the International Criminal Court under Executive Order 14203, signed by Donald Trump in February 2025. Until that day the order had been used against individuals: at least thirteen officials of the Court, including nine judges, President Tomoko Akane and the two deputy prosecutors who now lead the Office of the Prosecutor, as well as the UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese (OFAC, list of designations). Now the target is the institution.

In the video Rubio said the United States would ban transactions with this "rogue court", cutting off its resources and crippling its ability to operate, and that President Trump will never allow the Court to prosecute Americans. He ended with an ultimatum: either the Court ends its threats, or the United States will end the Court (The National).

What it bans, and what it does not. A sanction of this kind forbids US citizens and companies from any transaction with the Court without a Treasury authorisation, and in practice also deters foreign banks, which depend on the US financial system (Reuters, via The Senior). But alongside the designation the Treasury published four general licences. The most important, No. 13, authorises until 00:01 (Washington time) on 7 April 2027 all transactions needed to maintain or wind down the Court's operations. The text lists them: member-state payments, salaries, staff health insurance and medical care, rent, utilities, taxes, subscription services, invoices from before 9 October (OFAC, General License No. 13). The other three licences keep legal telecommunications, internet and software services, staff pension payments and the detention of defendants already in custody in The Hague (The Sanctions Drop).

In other words: today the Court keeps working. In six months, unless the licence is extended, it will not.

Why six months. According to the State Department, the period is meant to give the Court's member states a chance to show "meaningful progress" towards diplomatic and legal solutions, which could lead to the sanctions being lifted or the licence extended (The Sanctions Drop, quoting the statement). What Washington considers progress it has said many times: the withdrawal of the 2024 arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and the closure of the old investigation into US troops in Afghanistan (Reuters, via The Senior).

The reactions

The Court called the sanctions an attack on the rule of law and on the foundations of the international legal order. President Akane said the Court will keep carrying out its mandate with independence and impartiality, on the basis of the law and the evidence, for the victims of grave crimes (UPI). The statement adds that the Court cannot act alone, and that its fate is now also in the hands of the states that created it (Corriere della Sera). Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan, herself sanctioned in 2025, told Reuters the measures must be condemned (Jerusalem Post, from Reuters).

States responded in two ways at once: by defending the Court and by offering dialogue.

• Eight governments, Italy included. The foreign ministers of Italy, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom signed a joint statement. They express firm opposition to the sanctions and support for the Court's independence, and warn that, if applied, they would have a significant impact on its work and its staff. In the same statement they commit to a "constructive and inclusive" dialogue with the states that are not party to the Statute, ahead of the Assembly of States Parties in December 2026 (Corriere della Sera). The next day Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani told Il Messaggero that Italy "firmly" opposes the sanctions and will keep supporting the Court (Italpress).
• European Union. On 9 October the Commission called the announcement deeply regrettable and said it was ready to take all necessary measures to let the Court work and to protect European operators in the single market; with six months of transition, it added, there is room for dialogue (Corriere della Sera). On 10 October High Representative Kaja Kallas, on behalf of the Union, asked the United States to withdraw the sanctions. In the same statement she welcomed Washington's willingness to engage with the states parties and read the postponement of the measures as room for diplomacy (Sky TG24). The blocking statute, which only the Commission can activate, had not been activated by the evening of 10 October.
• Netherlands. Prime Minister Rob Jetten said his country will protect the Court "brick by brick", turning Rubio's phrase around. He also explained that several countries are working on proposals to reform the Court, and that the message to the Americans is to take part in that dialogue (Corriere della Sera). Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen welcomed the six-month period as an opportunity to explore with the other member states (News.az, from Anadolu).
• Other European governments. European Council President António Costa said international justice must be defended and that the Union will use political, diplomatic, financial and practical tools (TRT World). Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot called for the EU blocking statute to be activated to protect the Court (Al Jazeera). Austria, Denmark, Portugal and Sweden also condemned the sanctions; Switzerland, which is not in the Union, said it opposes sanctions and threats against the Court's independence (TRT World).
• UN. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was deeply alarmed: in his view the decision is a serious blow to international criminal justice (Al Jazeera). High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called the sanctions unacceptable (Corriere della Sera).
• United States, on the Nobel. At a rally in Syracuse on the evening of 9 October, Trump said he had never heard of Pillay and called the Committee's choice a "disgraceful and embarrassing decision", an "indelible stain" on Norway (GV Wire, from Reuters). He did not mention the Court.
• South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa congratulated Pillay, placing her alongside Luthuli, Tutu, Mandela and de Klerk. His message does not mention the Court or the sanctions (SAnews).
• Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump and Rubio and wrote that the Court is not a court but a political body (Corriere della Sera).

On the Nobel, the harshest reaction came from Israel. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar called the prize a grotesque exploitation and wrote that, if there were a prize for lies and slander, Pillay would be the clear favourite. He called her conclusions on Gaza the greatest lie of the century, going as far as invoking Goebbels (Open). The target is Pillay's work at the head of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Its 2025 report concluded that Israeli forces and leaders had committed four of the five acts of genocide listed in the 1948 Convention.

The Committee chair, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, replied that this work comes from a UN commission, that the Committee has full confidence in Pillay's professionalism, and that deciding whether it is genocide is a matter for international courts, not for the Committee. Pillay said she does not understand why it should take courage to tell the truth (Open). The next day, speaking by video link from Nuremberg to the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, she called sanctions against judges for their rulings "unheard of, unacceptable" (Dawn, from AFP).

As far as we could verify, by the evening of 10 October there were no official statements from Russia, China and India, which are not members of the Court, nor from Brazil, which is (Rio Times, for Brazil).

The Nobel and the sequence of events

The Committee awarded Pillay the prize "for her efforts to promote peace and international law", writing that she has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted, and that the prize is meant to remind the world that the rule of law, national and international, underpins the system built to keep the peace (nobelprize.org). Pillay now sits on the International Court of Justice in the case in which Myanmar is accused of genocide against the Rohingya. She dedicated the prize to the survivors of international crimes (Al Jazeera).

The temptation is to read the sanctions as a response to the prize. The facts do not support it. As early as 21 September two sources told Reuters that the sanctions against the whole Court were ready and only the date was missing (Reuters, via The Senior). We reported it at the time, covering Trump's appeal at the UN. The coincidence of dates is real, and it says something about how two institutions look at the same law. A motive, it is not.

How we got here

Legal analysis

1. The disputed jurisdiction. The US position is that the Court cannot try nationals of states that have not joined the Rome Statute, such as the United States and Israel. The Statute says otherwise: under Article 12, the Court tries crimes committed on the territory of a state party, whatever the nationality of the perpetrator. It is the same rule under which a national court tries a foreigner who commits a crime on its soil. Afghanistan and Palestine are states parties. We explained it in more depth here.

Israel contests this reading with two serious arguments: Palestine would not be a state for the purposes of the Statute, and under the Oslo Accords it would have no criminal jurisdiction over Israelis to transfer to the Court (Lieber Institute, West Point). In April 2025 the Court's Appeals Chamber sided with Israel on a procedural point and asked the judges to examine that challenge on the merits (JURIST). In January 2026 that examination was still under way. On another objection, that the Court should have notified Israel and given it the chance to investigate itself, the Appeals Chamber ruled on 15 December 2025 and rejected it by three votes to two; three days later the United States sanctioned two judges of that panel (Just Security). Meanwhile the warrants remain valid (The New Arab, from Reuters). That is where the question must be decided: in a court, not in a Treasury licence.

2. Who decides what. Neither the judges nor the prosecutor can "withdraw" a warrant by political agreement: a warrant is revoked by a judicial decision. Member states have no power to do so. They do have indirect tools: the budget, the election of the new prosecutor, whom the Assembly of States Parties must choose after Khan's removal, and political pressure. These are the tools the six months will be played on.

3. The immunity of those who judge. Article 48 of the Statute grants judges and prosecutors immunity for acts performed in their official capacity. UN experts recalled it when Russia convicted Khan and eight judges in absentia over the warrant against Putin (JURIST). It applies today too.

The symmetry test

Moscow and Washington. In December 2025 a Moscow court sentenced Prosecutor Khan to fifteen years and eight judges to terms of up to fifteen years for issuing the warrant against Putin. We covered it in Fifteen Years for a Warrant. President Akane is now convicted by Russia and sanctioned by the United States: two powers that do not recognise the Court and target the same people, for opposite reasons. The yardstick must be the same.

Critics from within. Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Venezuela and Chad notified their withdrawal from the Statute in 2026, accusing the Court of bias against Africa and Latin America (BSS, from AFP). Hungary had done the same in 2025, but the new government revoked the withdrawal before it took effect (ASIL).

Italy. In January 2025 Italy arrested and then flew back to Libya on a state flight Osama Almasri, wanted by the Court for crimes against humanity. The Court found that Italy had failed to comply and in January 2026 referred Italy to the Assembly of States Parties (University of Padua, Human Rights Centre). In February 2025, when Trump signed the executive order, Italy was not among the 79 states that signed a statement in defence of the Court (LaPresse). This time Rome signed the statement of the eight in defence of the Court. It is a change of position, and it should be recorded. The Almasri case remains open: those who defend the Court against Washington must ask Rome for the same consistency.

The Court itself. The Court has its limits, and a piece that defends it must not hide them. By mid-2025, according to Reuters, it had eleven convictions and four acquittals in more than twenty years, only six of them for the gravest crimes (Daily Maverick, from Reuters). Almost all defendants are African (University of Minnesota, Imagine Rights). In July 2026 its chief prosecutor was removed over harassment, by 82 votes out of 125; he denies it and is appealing (Anadolu). And the Afghanistan investigation, which Washington wants closed, had already been scaled back by the Court itself in 2021, amid criticism from human rights organisations (Al Jazeera).

Editorial judgment

This section expresses the site's position. It is separate from the facts set out above.

The headline was "the United States sanctions the Court". The text of Licence No. 13 tells a subtler story: the Court is not being shut down, it is being put under conditions. Salaries, rent and state contributions remain legal for six months. Then, if nobody has made "progress", the lights go out. It is not a blow: it is a countdown, and an invitation to bargain.

That is why the question for the coming months is not about Washington, whose position is clear. It is about the 125 states that created the Court, and the Court itself says so: its fate, it wrote, is in their hands. The first answer came the same day, and it already contains both paths: firm opposition to the sanctions and, in the same sentence, dialogue with those who impose them, reforms, the December Assembly. They can use these six months to truly protect it: banks and suppliers beyond the reach of the US Treasury, a European shield that works, a prosecutor elected without strings attached. Or they can use them to "dialogue", as the Dutch government put it, and discover that the price of dialogue is an investigation left to die or a prosecutor chosen not to disturb. The first scenario saves a court. The second saves the building and empties the court.

A Court that survives by giving up on judging those protected by a great power is no longer the same Court. It would be, literally, what Moscow, the Sahel governments and now Washington accuse it of being: a tool that works only against the weak.

What to watch

• The full State Department statement and the duration of licences No. 14, 15 and 16.
• The European Union's response: whether or not it activates the blocking statute, and whether it can protect an international institution.
• The positions of member states, starting with the Netherlands, Germany, Japan (the Court's largest funder) and Italy.
• Whether and how Russia, China, India and Brazil, silent so far, will speak.
• The Assembly of States Parties in December 2026, the "dialogue" with non-member states and the reform proposals announced by Jetten: what they contain.
• The election of the new prosecutor.
• The judges' decision on Israel's jurisdiction challenge, pending for more than a year.
• 7 April 2027: extension, lifting or block.

Sources: CBS News · OFAC, list of designations · The National · Reuters, via The Senior · OFAC, General License No. 13 · The Sanctions Drop · UPI · Corriere della Sera · Jerusalem Post, from Reuters · Italpress · Sky TG24 · News.az, from Anadolu · TRT World · Al Jazeera · GV Wire, from Reuters · SAnews · Open · Dawn, from AFP · Rio Times · nobelprize.org · Al Jazeera · Al Jazeera · Lieber Institute, West Point · JURIST · Just Security · The New Arab, from Reuters · JURIST · BSS, from AFP · ASIL · University of Padua, Human Rights Centre · LaPresse · Daily Maverick, from Reuters · University of Minnesota, Imagine Rights · Anadolu · Al Jazeera

Related pieces: The lighthouse · The Appeal That Fell Flat: Trump, the ICC, and the Weight of What Goes Unrecognized · Fifteen Years for a Warrant · Two warrants, zero arrests

← All news and manifestos