The US wielding the sanctions banhammer the way they have been recently will only weaken its power over time and create opportunity for economic rivals like China. Every time they (mis)use it they create incentive for people to create alternatives to the US financial system. You won't see sanctions become completely completely toothless overnight, but I could see in maybe 15-20 years that getting around US sanctions will be a mere inconvenience.
> The US wielding the sanctions banhammer the way they have been recently will only weaken its power over time and create opportunity for economic rivals like China.
China is not party to the Rome Statute, just like the US and Israel, I would expect they would retaliate against the ICC if the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Xi Jinping.
> Every time they (mis)use it they create incentive for people to create alternatives to the US financial system.
I think the ICC has much bigger credibility issues trying to impose jurisdiction over conflicts involving countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
> I think the ICC has much bigger credibility issues trying to impose jurisdiction over conflicts involving countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
It might create opportunity for the EU. China routinely deploys similar sanctions against people who e.g. recognize the independence of Taiwan or refuse to buy cotton from Xinjiang.
The US argues that the ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over the cases in question, and considers the ICC's attempts to investigate them a violation of sovereignty.
So? How is that the fault of the people working there? Would you want that to happen to you if you were working for a McDonalds, and McDonalds was deemed unhealthy in Europe and banned?
A warning about what? That the US thinks it rules the world and is terrified enough to go after individuals who just happen to work for the wrong employer? That other parts of the world are not allowed to have their own sense and modalities of justice?
It's basically a warning against attempting to apply jurisdiction to countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
> That the US thinks it rules the world and is terrified enough to go after individuals who just happen to work for the wrong employer?
The sanctions are due to specific actions(i.e. rulings) taken by the individuals against US and their allies.[0]
> That other parts of the world are not allowed to have their own sense and modalities of justice?
The issue is mostly one of jurisdiction, the ICC is attempting to unilaterally impose jurisdiction on to states that never agreed to delegate authority whatsoever to the ICC.
> It's basically a warning against attempting to apply jurisdiction to countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
The crimes prosecuted by the ICC are accepted by the US as matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, so the US can have no legitimate objection to (1) any country exercising jurisdiction over them wherever they are alleged to occur, or (2) any country exercising its sovereign power to delegate its exercise of jurisdiction over them anywhere to an international tribunal, like the ICC, either generally, under specified terms (such as those in the Rome Statute), or ad hoc.
And they certainly have the least basis for doing so when the country on whose territory they are alleged to have occurred, and who would thus have jurisdiction whether or not they were matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, does so. (Which is, other than a UNSC resolution, the only way the ICC, under the Rome Statute, gets jurisdiction when the accused are not nationals of a State Party to the Statute.)
The actual objection is not the broad principle you are trying to articulate, but it is to the idea of Israel being accountable under international law for crimes for which it has the full support of the US government, irrespective of any theory of law. Trying to frame it as having a good-faith legalistic rationale is either being woefully ignorant or being as flagrantly dishonest as the US government itself is being.
> The crimes prosecuted by the ICC are accepted by the US as matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, so the US can have no legitimate objection to (1) any country exercising jurisdiction over them wherever they are alleged to occur
There's plenty of legitimate objections such as not trusting a foreign court to appropriately decide international law.
> (2) any country exercising its sovereign power to delegate its exercise of jurisdiction over them anywhere to an international tribunal, like the ICC, either generally, under specified terms (such as those in the Rome Statute), or ad hoc.
In the case of Afghanistan, neither the US nor the Taliban are delegating that sort of authority to the ICC.
> And they certainly have the least basis for doing so when the country on whose territory they are alleged to have occurred, and who would thus have jurisdiction whether or not they were matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, does so.
IMO that's a pretty weak argument, especially when you have states being prosecuted which are non-signatories to the Rome Statute or are not full UN member states like in the case of Palestine.
> The actual objection is not the broad principle you are trying to articulate, but it is to the idea of Israel being accountable under international law for crimes for which it has the full support of the US government, irrespective of any theory of law.
The UN has a very well documented history of bias against Israel.[0] It seems entirely reasonable to me that neither the US nor Israel would trust a UN court, especially for anything related to wars involving Israel.
For the lazy, that unwatch link can be summarized as "israel keeps doing awful things and refuses to stop but the UN is biased against israel because it doesn't condemn hamas in every single resolution that also mentions israel", aka "we know we are doing awful things but Hamas does too stop picking on us!"
> For the lazy, that unwatch link can be summarized as "israel keeps doing awful things and refuses to stop but the UN is biased against israel because it doesn't condemn hamas in every single resolution that also mentions israel", aka "we know we are doing awful things but Hamas does too stop picking on us!"
From the link it states "From 2015 through 2023, the UN General Assembly has adopted 154 resolutions against Israel and 71 against other countries.".
This is clearly a case of extremely blatant bias, no matter how bad you think Israel is, it certainly doesn't deserve twice the resolutions against it than the rest of the world combined. The UN has basically thrown out all credibility when it comes to anything related to Israel.
> Saying a country made up heavily of refugees fleeing persecution is just a colonialist occupation project is pretty ridiculous IMO.
That's actually a pattern for colonialist occupation projects, its kind of a two-birds-with-one-stone thing for the colonial power. The colonization of Liberia also was very much this (as was the colonization of parts of what later became the USA.) And the (British, of course, this is very much a recurrent Anglo pattern) project for the colonization of Israel started long before the the refugee crisis that helped realize it occurred.
> That's actually a pattern for colonialist occupation projects, its kind of a two-birds-with-one-stone thing for the colonial power. The colonization of Liberia also was very much this (as was the colonization of parts of what later became the USA.)
There's a number of differences that make this comparison problematic. Israel's current Jewish population immigrated from many different countries, largely due to fleeing anti-semitism in those countries. The reason for them fleeing(anti-semitism) also very much exists to this day, especially when it comes to those Muslim majority countries many fled from after Israel gained independence, so any prospect of them returning is not remotely realistic.
> And the (British, of course, this is very much a recurrent Anglo pattern) project for the colonization of Israel started long before the the refugee crisis that helped realize it occurred.
While the UK may have held the mandate for Palestine for a period of time the majority of Jewish immigration to Palestine prior to the end of the mandate(and after) did not actually come from the UK or even other Anglo countries. This seems to be a rather important distinction as the immigration was arguably much more multi-source than the typical Anglo pattern colonialism.
In any case it seems to be quite clear that the extreme UN bias against Israel largely comes not from the colonial aspects of Israel's creation but rather from the various degrees of anti-semitism that is pervasive in many countries to this day.
ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accept that is their business. Nobody is interfering with their national autonomy. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC. The only country that is imposing their jurisdiction here, and enforcing it outside of their own jurisdiction, are the US. The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement. The ICC is only doing what they received as a task by the signatory countries of the Rome statute, which ultimately decide what actions to take or not. As such, you could say the ICC merely writes "policy recommendations". The US is the one taking action.
Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States or Israel? No, because it is a court. It publishes documents. Legal opinions. You're totally free to decide whether you accept it as a "court" or not.
Can't you see that it is exactly this kind of US exceptionalism and international interfering that stirs hatred, and does not bring peace but breeds terrorism and war?
> ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accepts that is their business. But that still doesn't explain the legal basis of going against individual employees of the ICC. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC or any of the countries that signed the Rome statute.
The ICC is attempting to have arrest warrants enforced through cooperation with states that are parties to the Rome Statutes for claimed offenses by citizens of countries that are not party to the Rome statute. The US views this as an attack on sovereignty essentially and essentially has decided to retaliate by imposing sanctions.
> The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement whatsoever. The US here is taking action.
The ICC issues documents that Rome Statute signatories have agreed to enforce(whether they actually enforce in practice is another matter. Regardless it seems pretty clear that the US considers any threat of enforcement to be sufficient grounds to impose sanctions against the organization they view as attacking it.
> Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States?
The ICC has made it difficult for the head of government of a strategic ally of the US to travel to many countries at a time when that ally is under attack by many other countries. The ICC has in effect threatened to do the same to US citizens as well. There's a bit more nuance than this but it's not hard to see why the US views the ICC as a real threat worthy of sanctions. This is not really a new thing either, the US has even strong-armed many countries into signing "Article 98 agreements" in order to ensure ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over US citizens.[0]
The fundamental difference is that ICC invites partners to agree with their legal assessment. It is each country’s sovereign decision to enforce it or not. The US applies force and boldly assumes they not only have the power but the right to do so, outside of their national jurisdiction. That is US exceptionalism at its best.
If you act like a bully, you will not make friends. It’s as simple as that.
> The fundamental difference is that ICC invites partners to agree with their legal assessment. It is each country’s sovereign decision to enforce it or not.
This isn't really accurate from a strict reading of the Rome Statute, there are treaty obligations for party states under the Rome Statute to enforce arrest warrants issued by the ICC, in practice countries obviously can choose not to comply but doing so is arguably a violation of the Rome Statute treaty as written. The EU considers a failure to enforce an arrest warrant to be a violation of obligations under the statute.[0]
> The US applies force and boldly assumes they not only have the power but the right to do so, outside of their national jurisdiction. That is US exceptionalism at its best.
Since the US considers the ICC a serious threat to sovereignty I think it's rather unsurprising that the US would attempt to apply sanctions quite broadly to those judges or individuals at the ICC that take positions which conflict with the US positions on ICC jurisdiction.
> If you act like a bully, you will not make friends. It’s as simple as that.
IMO this is a rather simplistic view of foreign policy/relations, the goal of foreign policy is generally to advance the interests of a country, this can be done by making friends in some cases but that approach isn't always going to be effective. Making friends is not really the end goal of foreign policy.
> This isn't really accurate from a strict reading of the Rome Statute, there are treaty obligations for party states
Which are members voluntarily, and are enforcing whatever law they want on their own, national territory; not outside of it.
> Making friends is not really the end goal of foreign policy.
You can claim that it isn't, OK. But I don't get how you can write it as if that was a hard fact. You make it sound as if that was a universal definition, which it isn't. Nobody, and no country (as in "the sum of its citizens"), likes it when others enter their boundaries and act like they have permission to make or enforce rules there without a contract/agreement. It is a hostile act.
The subject of the article, Kimberly Prost, is one of the specific decisionmakers at the ICC who ruled that the Afghanistan investigation could proceed over American objections. I agree with what I think is your implication, that it wouldn't make much sense to sanction random ICC employees.
What I'd want in some hypothetical situation, though, doesn't have much to do with it. If it were up to me, I'd rather the US ratify the Rome Statute so there's no jurisdictional issue in the first place.
I have few words to argue against what I consider to be 'midieval practices' that should not even exist as a thought in 'modern' Western 'democracies' on how to deal with international relations and law. Can you point me at the legal basis for this decision apart from "because we say so"? What crime did they commit? What they did as part of their job is not illegal. The US is not required to join and help actively enforce the court's decisions.
I don't mind differences of opinion. I do mind authoritarian, purely escalatory behavior not fit for a modern society with no rational basis behind it other than rage. There is no educational, pedagogical message behind this. The thought process behind actions like this seems to purely be "We happen to not agree with you, so we are in the right to hurt you" territory. Law enforcement is not meant for punishment for punishment's sake, it is meant to aim for correction. Anything else just creates more polarization and leads to more violence. I thought we had figured that out as civilization. It makes no sense.
Luz Ibanez was another of the judges who made that same ruling.
> I have no words to even argue against what I consider to be 'midieval practices' that should not even exist as a thought in 'modern' Western 'democracies' on how to deal with international relations and law. Can you point me at the legal basis for this decision apart from "because we say so"? What they did as part of their job is not illegal anywhere. The US is not required to join and help actively enforce the court's decisions.
What they did as part of their job is illegal in the US. US law specifies (22 USC 7421, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/7421) that the ICC may not prosecute Americans and the US government should do whatever it can to ensure that doesn't happen. A US court, of course, would not have jurisdiction over the actions of foreign nationals in foreign countries. But the executive, as in most if not all countries, has broad authority to impose sanctions on foreign individuals and organizations who are threatening to unlawfully injure US citizens.
Imagine that Putin set up a Transnational Criminal Court in Moscow, and judges in that court issued an arrest warrant, instructing anyone who can get their hands on Emmanuel Macron to kidnap him and bring him to Moscow to face trial for his government's actions in Mali. That would be a big problem, right? Of course the French government would try to punish the judges for doing that, and it would be more than a little silly to say they shouldn't face any consequences because Russian law authorized the warrant. This is what the US argues the ICC is doing here.
The counter-argument, of course, is that a country is allowed to adjudicate crimes that happen inside their own borders, else what's even the point of being a country.
The ICC has been granted jurisdiction by it's 124 signatories, so if crimes against humanity occur within their borders, then -for those countries- the ICC acts as part of their court system. Uncomfortably, this includes Afghanistan and the Palestinian state, so you can see why respectively the USA and Israel might have some issues.
Of course it kind of helps if people are arrested on the ground in the country where they committed the crimes they are accused of. The ICC does not necessarily have the ability to reach into non-member states to arrest people who have left the scene of the crime. They can only issue a warrant on the off chance that one day those people step back into their jurisdiction.
Funny enough the current government of Afghanistan also rejects ICC jurisdiction and is not a full UN or US recognized state.[0]
> Palestinian
Which is not a full UN or US/Israel recognized state either.
> you can see why respectively the USA and Israel might have some issues
Yeah, from the US/Israel point of view trying to enforce jurisdiction of unrecognized enemy states is certainly problematic. Especially when in the US/Afghanistan case neither government seems to be granting the court any jurisdiction at all.
> They are on a international body that is investigating allegations of war crimes and genocide that the United States and Israel have committed in Gaza
She was apparently sanctioned for the Afghanistan investigation, while others at the ICC were sanctioned for going after Israel.[0]
Let me first say I find it totally disgusting that she's getting debanked and it's not the first time: Canada did debank truckers and people organizing to send aid to truckers a few years ago.
But to answer your question...
What she did was zero condemnation of what even Amnesty International qualifies as a crime against humanity by legally elected Hamas (classified as a terror organization) but then overstepping her bound where she had no legislation and condemning the prime minister of a country that entered war.
Entered war after said crimes against humanity, where 1200 civilians were raped, killed and taken hostages (to the great joy of Gaza's population who, back then, was welcoming Hamas like heroes for the crimes against humanity they just committed).
Like way too many in the west who stayed completely silent on Oct 7th, she and others then went on a legal jihad against Israel for fighting back against people who, simply put, want to eradicate jews from the surface of the earth.
The same kind of people who are staying silent on a father and his son killing 16 jews on Bondi beach two days ago but who'll be everywhere to cry "islamophobia" if anyone points out that they were fighting islamist jihad.
I find it disgusting that she and others are getting debanked but don't get me wrong: to me she's a despicable tool of the muslim brotherhood (which is a terrorist organization) who wished Israel and jews were erased from the face of earth.
Imagine you're australian and 75x Bondi beach happens by Hamas (I'm not saying Hamas did that attack, it's an example): 75x is the scale of Oct 7th compared to the death on Bondi beach. What should the answer of Australia be towards Gaza?
And imagine 75x Bondi beach happen and then ICC judges stay eerily quiet on the subject but then, once Australia strikes back, the ICC, overstepping its jurisdiction, condemns australian officials for war crimes.
That's what she did wrong.
But this certainly doesn't mean she should get debanked. She, and the other Hamas-loving ICC judges, should just be exposed for what they are.
Think of all the people who've been very vocal pro-Gaza, including here on HN, but who are totally quiet on the 16 jews who were just killed on a beach in australia in the name of islamist jihad.
Things are way muddier and way darker than we think.
No, but do keep in mind that the ICC isn't very old. I think it's clear that the Bush administration at least would have imposed sanctions if the occasion arose; he signed the famous "Hague Invasion Act", authorizing military force to free any Americans who do end up in ICC custody.
That's absolutely wonderful. Great illustration why Europe needs to oust any American based service from the market. If Americans want to have access to EU customers they should be doing it only through local company (they are allowed to own) that doesn't obey US law, but only European law instead.
The US wielding the sanctions banhammer the way they have been recently will only weaken its power over time and create opportunity for economic rivals like China. Every time they (mis)use it they create incentive for people to create alternatives to the US financial system. You won't see sanctions become completely completely toothless overnight, but I could see in maybe 15-20 years that getting around US sanctions will be a mere inconvenience.
> The US wielding the sanctions banhammer the way they have been recently will only weaken its power over time and create opportunity for economic rivals like China.
China is not party to the Rome Statute, just like the US and Israel, I would expect they would retaliate against the ICC if the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Xi Jinping.
> Every time they (mis)use it they create incentive for people to create alternatives to the US financial system.
I think the ICC has much bigger credibility issues trying to impose jurisdiction over conflicts involving countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
> I think the ICC has much bigger credibility issues trying to impose jurisdiction over conflicts involving countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
such as…?
> such as…?
Israel and the US for example.
Way to go not answering the question. The Romans has a pretty apt saying for cases like this
Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses
> I would expect they would retaliate against the ICC if the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Xi Jinping.
Funny that we’re using this example when the ICC has issued a warrant against someone who isn’t the US head of state
It might create opportunity for the EU. China routinely deploys similar sanctions against people who e.g. recognize the independence of Taiwan or refuse to buy cotton from Xinjiang.
The only problem is that the EU is kind of irrelevant when it comes to "financial systems."
What did she do wrong?
The US argues that the ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over the cases in question, and considers the ICC's attempts to investigate them a violation of sovereignty.
So? How is that the fault of the people working there? Would you want that to happen to you if you were working for a McDonalds, and McDonalds was deemed unhealthy in Europe and banned?
sending a warning to other ICC judges/employees.
A warning about what? That the US thinks it rules the world and is terrified enough to go after individuals who just happen to work for the wrong employer? That other parts of the world are not allowed to have their own sense and modalities of justice?
> A warning about what?
It's basically a warning against attempting to apply jurisdiction to countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
> That the US thinks it rules the world and is terrified enough to go after individuals who just happen to work for the wrong employer?
The sanctions are due to specific actions(i.e. rulings) taken by the individuals against US and their allies.[0]
> That other parts of the world are not allowed to have their own sense and modalities of justice?
The issue is mostly one of jurisdiction, the ICC is attempting to unilaterally impose jurisdiction on to states that never agreed to delegate authority whatsoever to the ICC.
[0] https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...
> It's basically a warning against attempting to apply jurisdiction to countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
The crimes prosecuted by the ICC are accepted by the US as matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, so the US can have no legitimate objection to (1) any country exercising jurisdiction over them wherever they are alleged to occur, or (2) any country exercising its sovereign power to delegate its exercise of jurisdiction over them anywhere to an international tribunal, like the ICC, either generally, under specified terms (such as those in the Rome Statute), or ad hoc.
And they certainly have the least basis for doing so when the country on whose territory they are alleged to have occurred, and who would thus have jurisdiction whether or not they were matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, does so. (Which is, other than a UNSC resolution, the only way the ICC, under the Rome Statute, gets jurisdiction when the accused are not nationals of a State Party to the Statute.)
The actual objection is not the broad principle you are trying to articulate, but it is to the idea of Israel being accountable under international law for crimes for which it has the full support of the US government, irrespective of any theory of law. Trying to frame it as having a good-faith legalistic rationale is either being woefully ignorant or being as flagrantly dishonest as the US government itself is being.
> The crimes prosecuted by the ICC are accepted by the US as matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, so the US can have no legitimate objection to (1) any country exercising jurisdiction over them wherever they are alleged to occur
There's plenty of legitimate objections such as not trusting a foreign court to appropriately decide international law.
> (2) any country exercising its sovereign power to delegate its exercise of jurisdiction over them anywhere to an international tribunal, like the ICC, either generally, under specified terms (such as those in the Rome Statute), or ad hoc.
In the case of Afghanistan, neither the US nor the Taliban are delegating that sort of authority to the ICC.
> And they certainly have the least basis for doing so when the country on whose territory they are alleged to have occurred, and who would thus have jurisdiction whether or not they were matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, does so.
IMO that's a pretty weak argument, especially when you have states being prosecuted which are non-signatories to the Rome Statute or are not full UN member states like in the case of Palestine.
> The actual objection is not the broad principle you are trying to articulate, but it is to the idea of Israel being accountable under international law for crimes for which it has the full support of the US government, irrespective of any theory of law.
The UN has a very well documented history of bias against Israel.[0] It seems entirely reasonable to me that neither the US nor Israel would trust a UN court, especially for anything related to wars involving Israel.
[0] https://unwatch.org/2024-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-...
For the lazy, that unwatch link can be summarized as "israel keeps doing awful things and refuses to stop but the UN is biased against israel because it doesn't condemn hamas in every single resolution that also mentions israel", aka "we know we are doing awful things but Hamas does too stop picking on us!"
> For the lazy, that unwatch link can be summarized as "israel keeps doing awful things and refuses to stop but the UN is biased against israel because it doesn't condemn hamas in every single resolution that also mentions israel", aka "we know we are doing awful things but Hamas does too stop picking on us!"
From the link it states "From 2015 through 2023, the UN General Assembly has adopted 154 resolutions against Israel and 71 against other countries.".
This is clearly a case of extremely blatant bias, no matter how bad you think Israel is, it certainly doesn't deserve twice the resolutions against it than the rest of the world combined. The UN has basically thrown out all credibility when it comes to anything related to Israel.
> There's plenty of legitimate objections such as not trusting a foreign court to appropriately decide international law.
So, which country do you think should decide international law?
Israel is a colonialist occupation project. So the UN being "biased" against it is good and correct.
> Israel is a colonialist occupation project.
Saying a country made up heavily of refugees fleeing persecution is just a colonialist occupation project is pretty ridiculous IMO.
> So the UN being "biased" against it is good and correct.
There are many countries(including the US) that much more easily fit into your "colonialist occupation project" label that the UN doesn't go after.
> Saying a country made up heavily of refugees fleeing persecution is just a colonialist occupation project is pretty ridiculous IMO.
That's actually a pattern for colonialist occupation projects, its kind of a two-birds-with-one-stone thing for the colonial power. The colonization of Liberia also was very much this (as was the colonization of parts of what later became the USA.) And the (British, of course, this is very much a recurrent Anglo pattern) project for the colonization of Israel started long before the the refugee crisis that helped realize it occurred.
> That's actually a pattern for colonialist occupation projects, its kind of a two-birds-with-one-stone thing for the colonial power. The colonization of Liberia also was very much this (as was the colonization of parts of what later became the USA.)
There's a number of differences that make this comparison problematic. Israel's current Jewish population immigrated from many different countries, largely due to fleeing anti-semitism in those countries. The reason for them fleeing(anti-semitism) also very much exists to this day, especially when it comes to those Muslim majority countries many fled from after Israel gained independence, so any prospect of them returning is not remotely realistic.
> And the (British, of course, this is very much a recurrent Anglo pattern) project for the colonization of Israel started long before the the refugee crisis that helped realize it occurred.
While the UK may have held the mandate for Palestine for a period of time the majority of Jewish immigration to Palestine prior to the end of the mandate(and after) did not actually come from the UK or even other Anglo countries. This seems to be a rather important distinction as the immigration was arguably much more multi-source than the typical Anglo pattern colonialism.
In any case it seems to be quite clear that the extreme UN bias against Israel largely comes not from the colonial aspects of Israel's creation but rather from the various degrees of anti-semitism that is pervasive in many countries to this day.
ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accept that is their business. Nobody is interfering with their national autonomy. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC. The only country that is imposing their jurisdiction here, and enforcing it outside of their own jurisdiction, are the US. The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement. The ICC is only doing what they received as a task by the signatory countries of the Rome statute, which ultimately decide what actions to take or not. As such, you could say the ICC merely writes "policy recommendations". The US is the one taking action.
Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States or Israel? No, because it is a court. It publishes documents. Legal opinions. You're totally free to decide whether you accept it as a "court" or not.
Can't you see that it is exactly this kind of US exceptionalism and international interfering that stirs hatred, and does not bring peace but breeds terrorism and war?
> ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accepts that is their business. But that still doesn't explain the legal basis of going against individual employees of the ICC. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC or any of the countries that signed the Rome statute.
The ICC is attempting to have arrest warrants enforced through cooperation with states that are parties to the Rome Statutes for claimed offenses by citizens of countries that are not party to the Rome statute. The US views this as an attack on sovereignty essentially and essentially has decided to retaliate by imposing sanctions.
> The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement whatsoever. The US here is taking action.
The ICC issues documents that Rome Statute signatories have agreed to enforce(whether they actually enforce in practice is another matter. Regardless it seems pretty clear that the US considers any threat of enforcement to be sufficient grounds to impose sanctions against the organization they view as attacking it.
> Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States?
The ICC has made it difficult for the head of government of a strategic ally of the US to travel to many countries at a time when that ally is under attack by many other countries. The ICC has in effect threatened to do the same to US citizens as well. There's a bit more nuance than this but it's not hard to see why the US views the ICC as a real threat worthy of sanctions. This is not really a new thing either, the US has even strong-armed many countries into signing "Article 98 agreements" in order to ensure ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over US citizens.[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...
The fundamental difference is that ICC invites partners to agree with their legal assessment. It is each country’s sovereign decision to enforce it or not. The US applies force and boldly assumes they not only have the power but the right to do so, outside of their national jurisdiction. That is US exceptionalism at its best.
If you act like a bully, you will not make friends. It’s as simple as that.
> The fundamental difference is that ICC invites partners to agree with their legal assessment. It is each country’s sovereign decision to enforce it or not.
This isn't really accurate from a strict reading of the Rome Statute, there are treaty obligations for party states under the Rome Statute to enforce arrest warrants issued by the ICC, in practice countries obviously can choose not to comply but doing so is arguably a violation of the Rome Statute treaty as written. The EU considers a failure to enforce an arrest warrant to be a violation of obligations under the statute.[0]
> The US applies force and boldly assumes they not only have the power but the right to do so, outside of their national jurisdiction. That is US exceptionalism at its best.
Since the US considers the ICC a serious threat to sovereignty I think it's rather unsurprising that the US would attempt to apply sanctions quite broadly to those judges or individuals at the ICC that take positions which conflict with the US positions on ICC jurisdiction.
> If you act like a bully, you will not make friends. It’s as simple as that.
IMO this is a rather simplistic view of foreign policy/relations, the goal of foreign policy is generally to advance the interests of a country, this can be done by making friends in some cases but that approach isn't always going to be effective. Making friends is not really the end goal of foreign policy.
[0] https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/mongolia-statement-spokesper...
> This isn't really accurate from a strict reading of the Rome Statute, there are treaty obligations for party states
Which are members voluntarily, and are enforcing whatever law they want on their own, national territory; not outside of it.
> Making friends is not really the end goal of foreign policy.
You can claim that it isn't, OK. But I don't get how you can write it as if that was a hard fact. You make it sound as if that was a universal definition, which it isn't. Nobody, and no country (as in "the sum of its citizens"), likes it when others enter their boundaries and act like they have permission to make or enforce rules there without a contract/agreement. It is a hostile act.
The subject of the article, Kimberly Prost, is one of the specific decisionmakers at the ICC who ruled that the Afghanistan investigation could proceed over American objections. I agree with what I think is your implication, that it wouldn't make much sense to sanction random ICC employees.
What I'd want in some hypothetical situation, though, doesn't have much to do with it. If it were up to me, I'd rather the US ratify the Rome Statute so there's no jurisdictional issue in the first place.
Luz Ibanez: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/life-icc-judge-sanctioned...
I have few words to argue against what I consider to be 'midieval practices' that should not even exist as a thought in 'modern' Western 'democracies' on how to deal with international relations and law. Can you point me at the legal basis for this decision apart from "because we say so"? What crime did they commit? What they did as part of their job is not illegal. The US is not required to join and help actively enforce the court's decisions.
I don't mind differences of opinion. I do mind authoritarian, purely escalatory behavior not fit for a modern society with no rational basis behind it other than rage. There is no educational, pedagogical message behind this. The thought process behind actions like this seems to purely be "We happen to not agree with you, so we are in the right to hurt you" territory. Law enforcement is not meant for punishment for punishment's sake, it is meant to aim for correction. Anything else just creates more polarization and leads to more violence. I thought we had figured that out as civilization. It makes no sense.
Luz Ibanez was another of the judges who made that same ruling.
> I have no words to even argue against what I consider to be 'midieval practices' that should not even exist as a thought in 'modern' Western 'democracies' on how to deal with international relations and law. Can you point me at the legal basis for this decision apart from "because we say so"? What they did as part of their job is not illegal anywhere. The US is not required to join and help actively enforce the court's decisions.
What they did as part of their job is illegal in the US. US law specifies (22 USC 7421, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/7421) that the ICC may not prosecute Americans and the US government should do whatever it can to ensure that doesn't happen. A US court, of course, would not have jurisdiction over the actions of foreign nationals in foreign countries. But the executive, as in most if not all countries, has broad authority to impose sanctions on foreign individuals and organizations who are threatening to unlawfully injure US citizens.
Imagine that Putin set up a Transnational Criminal Court in Moscow, and judges in that court issued an arrest warrant, instructing anyone who can get their hands on Emmanuel Macron to kidnap him and bring him to Moscow to face trial for his government's actions in Mali. That would be a big problem, right? Of course the French government would try to punish the judges for doing that, and it would be more than a little silly to say they shouldn't face any consequences because Russian law authorized the warrant. This is what the US argues the ICC is doing here.
That's a very good US-side steelman!
The counter-argument, of course, is that a country is allowed to adjudicate crimes that happen inside their own borders, else what's even the point of being a country.
The ICC has been granted jurisdiction by it's 124 signatories, so if crimes against humanity occur within their borders, then -for those countries- the ICC acts as part of their court system. Uncomfortably, this includes Afghanistan and the Palestinian state, so you can see why respectively the USA and Israel might have some issues.
Of course it kind of helps if people are arrested on the ground in the country where they committed the crimes they are accused of. The ICC does not necessarily have the ability to reach into non-member states to arrest people who have left the scene of the crime. They can only issue a warrant on the off chance that one day those people step back into their jurisdiction.
> Afghanistan
Funny enough the current government of Afghanistan also rejects ICC jurisdiction and is not a full UN or US recognized state.[0]
> Palestinian
Which is not a full UN or US/Israel recognized state either.
> you can see why respectively the USA and Israel might have some issues
Yeah, from the US/Israel point of view trying to enforce jurisdiction of unrecognized enemy states is certainly problematic. Especially when in the US/Afghanistan case neither government seems to be granting the court any jurisdiction at all.
[0] https://www.ejiltalk.org/unrecognized-governments-and-the-ic...
They are on a international body that is investigating allegations of war crimes and genocide that the United States and Israel have committed in Gaza
> They are on a international body that is investigating allegations of war crimes and genocide that the United States and Israel have committed in Gaza
She was apparently sanctioned for the Afghanistan investigation, while others at the ICC were sanctioned for going after Israel.[0]
[0] https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...
Let me first say I find it totally disgusting that she's getting debanked and it's not the first time: Canada did debank truckers and people organizing to send aid to truckers a few years ago.
But to answer your question...
What she did was zero condemnation of what even Amnesty International qualifies as a crime against humanity by legally elected Hamas (classified as a terror organization) but then overstepping her bound where she had no legislation and condemning the prime minister of a country that entered war.
Entered war after said crimes against humanity, where 1200 civilians were raped, killed and taken hostages (to the great joy of Gaza's population who, back then, was welcoming Hamas like heroes for the crimes against humanity they just committed).
Like way too many in the west who stayed completely silent on Oct 7th, she and others then went on a legal jihad against Israel for fighting back against people who, simply put, want to eradicate jews from the surface of the earth.
The same kind of people who are staying silent on a father and his son killing 16 jews on Bondi beach two days ago but who'll be everywhere to cry "islamophobia" if anyone points out that they were fighting islamist jihad.
I find it disgusting that she and others are getting debanked but don't get me wrong: to me she's a despicable tool of the muslim brotherhood (which is a terrorist organization) who wished Israel and jews were erased from the face of earth.
Imagine you're australian and 75x Bondi beach happens by Hamas (I'm not saying Hamas did that attack, it's an example): 75x is the scale of Oct 7th compared to the death on Bondi beach. What should the answer of Australia be towards Gaza?
And imagine 75x Bondi beach happen and then ICC judges stay eerily quiet on the subject but then, once Australia strikes back, the ICC, overstepping its jurisdiction, condemns australian officials for war crimes.
That's what she did wrong.
But this certainly doesn't mean she should get debanked. She, and the other Hamas-loving ICC judges, should just be exposed for what they are.
Think of all the people who've been very vocal pro-Gaza, including here on HN, but who are totally quiet on the 16 jews who were just killed on a beach in australia in the name of islamist jihad.
Things are way muddier and way darker than we think.
You got down voted by haters lol, don't worry there are some of us who support you
Has the US imposed these kinds of sanctions on the ICC before Trump?
No, but do keep in mind that the ICC isn't very old. I think it's clear that the Bush administration at least would have imposed sanctions if the occasion arose; he signed the famous "Hague Invasion Act", authorizing military force to free any Americans who do end up in ICC custody.
That's absolutely wonderful. Great illustration why Europe needs to oust any American based service from the market. If Americans want to have access to EU customers they should be doing it only through local company (they are allowed to own) that doesn't obey US law, but only European law instead.
It's part of the Trump administration's support of crypto. </sarcasm>