When dependencies are weaponized - where is Europe’s response to the ICC sanctions?

The United States has once again imposed sanctions on senior representatives of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Aug 25, 2026

On 18 August 2026, ICC President Judge Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, a Senior Trial Lawyer at the ICC, were sanctioned. These sanctions will freeze their United States assets and restrict their access not only to US based companies and payment providers such as Visa and Mastercard, but also, through secondary sanctions and overcompliance, to European companies and bank accounts.

These new sanctions are not an isolated development. They are part of an ongoing campaign by the United States to systematically dismantle the ICC. In September 2020, the first Trump administration sanctioned Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and a senior prosecution official; former US-President Biden lifted those measures in 2021. The second Trump administration resumed the campaign in February 2025, sanctioning Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan and four judges in June 2025. On 20 August 2025, the United States had already imposed sanctions on four other senior ICC officials: Judge Kimberly Prost of Canada, Judge Nicolas Guillou of France, and Deputy Prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal. Two additional judges were sanctioned in December 2025, and now President Tomoko Akane as the first sitting ICC President ever to be sanctioned. Nine of the Court's 18 judges, both Deputy Prosecutors and the former Chief Prosecutor are now under US sanctions.

The latest sanctions against Court President Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye of the Office of the Prosecutor exert undue institutional pressure on ICC leadership. Media reports indicate that the US government is justifying these measures primarily on the grounds of ICC investigations into representatives of states that do not recognize the Court’s jurisdiction, including proceedings concerning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as members of the US armed forces. Vladimir Putin, who is himself wanted on an ICC arrest warrant, stands to benefit from the campaign, while Russia has become one of its contributors, convicting ICC judges and prosecutors in absentia. As a result, major investigations aimed at bringing justice to victims of war crimes from Afghanistan, Mali, and Sudan are at risk of being undermined. 

Volt Europa strongly condemns these sanctions

The International Criminal Court is a supranational institution of international law. Its purpose is to ensure that the gravest international atrocities, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, can be investigated and prosecuted independently of national political power relations across the globe.

When judges and prosecutors are subjected to economic sanctions simply because their investigations and judicial decisions run counter to the interests of a powerful state, a dangerous precedent is set. International law must not apply only when it aligns with the interests of powerful government actors. The United States has moved from refusing to be bound by the Rome Statute to actively undermining its operation: targeting sanctions against its officers for merely doing their job, campaigning for state parties to leave the statute, and dispensing with international justice. 

Europe must act decisively now

Volt Europa has already called for European protection of the ICC in response to previous US sanctions. In light of this renewed escalation, we explicitly reaffirm that position.

The European Commission and the Council should immediately extend the EU Blocking Statute to protect the ICC from sanctions against its representatives by adding US Executive Order 14203 to its annex, so that EU entities are legally prohibited from complying with these extraterritorial sanctions. The Annex can be and has been amended before under Article 1(2) without veto rights of single member states. At Volt, we have already called for such action. That this issue is only being addressed now shows the EU has wasted valuable time and lacked the political will to challenge the status quo. After the European Parliament including several member states called for the extension in 2025, the Commission rolled back the position  in February 2026, stating that an amendment was merely “under consideration.” European banks, payment service providers, companies and other institutions need clear legal guidelines to ensure continued cooperation with the ICC and avoid exposure to economic pressure from extraterritorial US sanctions.

Financial support must reach the people whom sanctions actually cut off. The EU and its Member States should strengthen the financial support for the ICC and those affected by sanctions by providing them with funds, goods and services to alleviate the harmful financial effect. This includes setting up a special purpose fund and directly providing emergency cash assistance to any person affected by sanctions so that the sanctions are rendered ineffective. The EU should use Article 14 of the 2006 EU-ICC Cooperation and Assistance Agreement to provide the services the Court needs to keep its officials functioning, and should, together with the Assembly of States Parties,  establish a resilience fund at the Court under Article 116 of the Rome Statute for the benefit of sanctioned judges and prosecutors.

No government should be able to use economic or political pressure to erode international law and to determine which international investigations may be conducted and which may not.

The EU and its Member States should therefore:

  • strengthen the legal protection of the ICC and its representatives against extraterritorial sanctions;

  • extend the EU Blocking Statute to cover the US sanctions against the ICC;

  • provide European banks, companies and payment service providers with clear legal guarantees for their cooperation with the ICC;

  • publicly and unequivocally defend the independence of its judges and the Office of the Prosecutor;

  • coordinate with the other member states party to the Rome Statute in order to jointly counter further attacks on the Court; 

  • strengthen Europe’s strategic sovereignty by limiting dependence on financial and payment services and technical infrastructure that can be unilaterally withdrawn or constrained from outside the EU ; and,

  • strengthen the financial support for the ICC and those affected by sanctions. 

The latest sanctions once again demonstrate why Europe must take its strategic autonomy seriously. If access to international financial and payment systems can be used as an instrument of political pressure, this affects not only individual persons and institutions, but undermines Europe’s ability to implement its own legal principles and political decisions independently.

Volt Europa stands for a Europe that defends the rule of law, human rights and international law through its institutions

The European Union cannot credibly advocate for a rules-based international order while simultaneously allowing independent international courts to be weakened through economic and political intimidation.

The sanctions against the President of the ICC and a senior representative of the Office of the Prosecutor evince more than a mere dispute between the United States and the Court. They are an attempt to dismantle the Court’s ability to administer justice independent of the influence of geopolitical power.  

The EU and the States Parties to the Rome Statute must resolutely protect the institutions of the rules-based international order. The EU is bound by its own treaties to found itself upon the rule of law and human rights (Article 2 TEU) and to promote those values and the strict observance of international law in its external action (Articles 3 and 21 TEU), of which the Rome Statute and the ICC are core elements. Anyone who seeks to defend international justice must not allow judges and prosecutors to be intimidated through political or economic sanctions. Europe must act collectively and decisively now to defend its own values.

If people serving our institutions are going to be denied access to basic services by the US, then we will have to ensure that no one in the EU or in any international organisation is dependent on those services.

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