Ex-ICC prosecutor urges EU law to counter US sanctions on court

A former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has urged the European Union to adopt a blocking statute against US sanctions that she called thuggish and bullying.

The sanctions, imposed in February 2025, target 11 ICC officials, including nine judges and the chief prosecutor, plus three Palestinian organisations. Washington said the measures responded to the court's 2024 arrest warrants for Israeli cabinet members, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The sanctions impose travel bans and asset freezes that have cut judges off from the European banking system and disrupted their families' daily lives.

Fatou Bensouda, who served as ICC prosecutor from 2012 to 2021, spoke at a meeting in The Hague organised by the Rights Forum, a Dutch non-governmental organisation. She said the sanctions represent coercive attempts to interfere with judicial functions established under international law.

Without naming the United States, Bensouda described the measures as a profound conceptual distortion that turns disagreement with legal process into economic coercion for political ends. She called the approach thuggish, inappropriate and bullying.

Bensouda criticised ICC member states for what she described as slow and timid reactions, inactions and empty gestures of support without tangible pushback. She noted particular anger in some quarters that the Dutch government, as host to the court, has done little to protect judges facing sanctions or intimidation.

Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer now serving as her country's high commissioner to the United Kingdom, said she had faced organised intimidation during her time at the court and believed it had affected her later career.

She warned that preparations must begin now for possible sanctions against the court as an institution. If qualified professionals decide that ICC service carries unacceptable personal and financial risk, she said, the future capacity of the court will suffer.

Bensouda called for state parties to establish coordinated legal, defence and indemnification mechanisms through the assembly of state parties. She urged the creation of protected banking channels for the court, its personnel and authorised contractors, and said the EU should trigger its blocking statute.

She also called for domestic laws that prevent enforcement cooperation with coercive measures aimed at lawful ICC activity. No prosecutor, judge, registrar or investigator acting within a lawful mandate should face personal financial ruin because of politically motivated sanctions, she said.

The Dutch government has signed an agreement with the ICC committing it to ensure the security and protection of people essential to the court. Progressive Dutch MPs say the current coalition has done little in practice, leaving the task largely to other countries, notably Spain.

The United States has said it sanctioned the ICC officials for efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute Israeli nationals without Israel's consent.

Bensouda said the United States had distorted sanctions from a legitimate instrument into a tool for political signalling intended to create fear and isolate its targets. She said the aim was for the ICC to fade into oblivion, adding that the court is a judicial body, not a hostile government, armed group or terrorist organisation.