ICC president says court will resist US sanctions

International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane said on August 26 that she would not give up despite US sanctions and that the court would resist if Washington escalated sanctions against the organisation itself.

Akane, a Japanese judge, said the sanctions against her had so far blocked her credit card access. “Even if sanctions against the ICC itself are added, we won't give up,” she told reporters remotely in Tokyo.

Washington sanctioned Akane and Senegalese trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye last week as part of the Trump administration's campaign against a body it calls “corrupt and fatally politicised”.

Akane said a permanent body such as the ICC “must never be shut down” and said the court would resist. She also said she hoped Japan would encourage less powerful member countries not to yield to US pressure to leave the ICC.

Her comments came a day after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi defended her government's condemnation of the US sanctions as “very unfortunate”. Takaichi said Japan, as the ICC's biggest funder, must protect the organisation and would “engage when and where necessary”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has accused Akane and Seye of carrying out actions against “officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”, without providing examples.

The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute individuals accused of the gravest atrocities and acts as a last resort when countries do not have adequate legal systems to ensure accountability. The United States signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC but never ratified it. Israel, Russia and China are not ICC members either.