President Biden to lift sanctions imposed by Trump on International Court Officials

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US President Joe Biden has lifted sanctions that Donald Trump had imposed on 2 top officials of the International Criminal Court undoing one of the past administration’s more aggressive moves targeting international institutions and officials. President Biden issued a statement and stressed that the US still strongly disagreed with some actions by the court, which is a standing body based at “The Hague in the Netherlands” charged with handling genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Point to be noted that the US is not one of the 120 member countries of the court. Biden said, “We believe, however, that our concerns about these cases would be better addressed through diplomacy rather than through the imposition of sanctions, in lifting the measures. The termination of the sanctions was the latest move the Biden administration is looking at returning to the multilateral fold.

The Trump administration had impenitently removed the United States from various international institutions and agreements. The administration also harshly criticized others, including the ICC, believing them imperfect and working against American interests. President Biden’s administration has rejoined the World Health Organization, re-engaged with the UN Human Rights Council, returned to the Paris climate accord, and began talks designed at returning to the Iran nuclear deal. The court was created to hold accountable perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity in cases where adequate judicial systems were not available. The US sanctions had targeted ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and the court’s head of jurisdiction, Phakiso Mochochoko, for pressing ahead with investigations into the United States and its allies, especially Israel, for alleged war crimes.

It is noteworthy that 2 sets of sanctions were imposed in March 2019. The first was related to a travel ban on Bensouda and the other (18 months later) was a freeze on any assets Bensouda and Mochochoko may have in the United States or US jurisdictions. Both sets of sanctions had been roundly denounced by the ICC itself including a number of court members and human rights groups. The former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo imposed the financial penalties in September 2020. He attacked the court as a thoroughly broken and corrupt institution and said “We will not tolerate its illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction”. The Trump administration was openly hostile to the tribunal and lashed out at Bensouda and others for pursuing prosecutions of Americans for actions in Afghanistan and Israelis for actions against the Palestinians.