Former prosecutor calls for EU statute blocking US sanctions on ICC members

A former prosecutor at the international criminal court has called for an EU-wide statute blocking what she describes as “thuggish” and “bullying” US sanctions imposed on members of the court that are designed to send the court into oblivion.

In February 2025, the US imposed sanctions on 11 ICC officials, including nine judges and the chief prosecutor as well three Palestinian organisations, in response to the ICC decision in 2024 to issue arrest warrants for members of the Israeli cabinet, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The US sanctions – which include travel bans and asset freezes – have locked judges out of the European financial system, making it impossible for them or their families to live normal lives.

Fatou Bensouda, ICC prosecutor from 2012 to 2021, told a meeting in The Hague of the Rights Forum, a prominent Dutch non-governmental organisation: “These are coercive attempts to interfere with the independent exercise of judicial and prosecutorial functions established under international law. If the international community does not respond with seriousness, institutional resolve and practical solidarity, the consequences will extend far beyond The Hague.”

Without naming the US, she said: “To deploy such instruments against prosecutors, judges or court officials who are engaged in judicial functions in the pursuit of accountability for the most egregious crimes represents a profound conceptual distortion.

“It is thuggish and inappropriate, and it should be called out for what it is. It transforms disagreement with legal process into crippling economic coercion to meet political ends. It is bullying, coercion and power politics through other means.”

Bensouda accused ICC-affiliated states of “largely slow and timid reactions, inactions and empty gestures of support, without tangible backing and pushback against coercive measures”.

There is growing anger in some quarters that the Dutch government in particular – as host to the ICC in The Hague – has done little to protect ICC judges facing crippling sanctions or individual intimidation.

Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer currently serving as the west African country’s high commissioner to the UK, said she had been subject to organised intimidation in her time at the court and had reason to believe her subsequent career path had been affected.

She also warned that preparations needed to be made now for sanctions being imposed on the court itself as an institution.

“We should ask ourselves an uncomfortable question,” she said. “If highly qualified professionals conclude that service at the ICC carries unacceptable personal and financial risk, what happens to the future capacity of the institution? What happens when sanctions become normalised as tools of judicial intimidation? What happens when banks decline services, insurers withdraw coverage, technology providers hesitate to engage and external experts fear association with the court? And this is not hypothetical.”

She called for “structural resistance”, saying “state parties, through the assembly of state parties, should establish coordinated legal, defence and indemnification mechanisms for sanctions. State parties cannot respond merely with expressions of concern. Supportive statements are no longer enough. Concrete proposals are necessary.”

“No prosecutor, judge, registrar or investigator acting within lawful mandate should face personal financial ruin because of politically motivated sanctions. States should create protected banking and financial channels for the court, its personnel and authorised contractors. The EU should move to trigger the EU blocking statute.”

She also called for state parties “to adopt domestic legislative safeguards, preventing enforcement cooperation with coercive measures directed against lawful ICC activity. The Rome Statute system cannot depend solely on moral solidarity. It requires operational solidarity.”

The Dutch government has signed an agreement with the ICC that commits the government to ensure the security, safety and protection of people indispensable to the court, but progressive Dutch MPs claim the coalition government has done little in practice to defend the ICC, leaving the task to other countries, notably Spain.

The US says it has sanctioned the ICC officials for directly engaging in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent.

Bensouda said the US had distorted sanctions, turning them from a legitimate instrument into use for wholly inappropriate political signalling. “The purpose of personal sanctions is not merely punitive, it is deterrent,” she said. “It is intended to create fear. It is intended to isolate.”

She said the aim of the sanctions was for the ICC to fade into oblivion, adding: “The ICC is not a hostile government. It is not an armed group. It is not a terrorist organization. It is not a sanctions evader. It is a critical judicial body. And using sanctions against judicial actors represents a dangerous misuse of a tool originally justified for fundamentally different purposes.”