THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) - The pressure hits fast - bank accounts freeze, cards stop working, travel plans fall apart and even basic work tools go dark - then spreads into something harder to contain.
That is what sanctions from the United States have begun to look like for people working with the International Criminal Court, as Washington ramps up pressure over investigations involving U.S. nationals and its allies.
In a report released Thursday, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court argues that the damage no longer stops with the court officials formally named by Washington. It now reaches into the wider justice system that supports the court - from United Nations experts to Palestinian human rights groups, and into the daily mechanics of how evidence is gathered, victims are supported and cases move forward.
"The report shows how the Trump administration has weaponized the U.S. banking, IT and services to attack the entire international justice system, from civil society organizations documenting crimes, to prosecutors, judges and U.N. independent experts," said Alison Smith, director of the coalition.
Justice in the crosshairs
Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, the International Criminal Court is meant to handle genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity when national systems fail to do so. It opened in 2002 and now has 125 member states under the Rome Statute. The United States never joined and has long rejected the idea that the court can sit in judgment over Americans or leaders of close U.S. partners.
That clash is old. The pressure campaign is not.
For Washington, the ICC is not just a sovereignty dispute. It is the court that scrutinized reported crimes tied to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, pushed ahead with its Palestine situation investigation and issued warrants tied to the Israel-Gaza war. With the Russia-Ukraine war still active and the current U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict raising the stakes, the battle over the court has become part of a larger fight over who gets to police the world's most explosive conflicts.
This time, Washington used sanctions with global reach. Because so much of the world still runs through U.S. banks, payment systems and tech platforms, one executive order can disrupt life far from Washington. It began in February 2025 with sanctions on ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, then spread to other prosecutors, judges, U.N. expert Francesca Albanese and Palestinian civil society groups.
"I was the first guinea pig of Donald Trump, to see how much we would be hurt by these sanctions," Khan said in the report.
Those targeted said the effects reached far beyond travel bans or frozen U.S.-based assets. Some lost access to bank accounts, cards and payment services. Others said transfers were blocked, non-U.S. bank accounts were closed and family members were affected. Some said their children's U.S. visas were canceled as well.
"One of the most painful things about the sanctions is the impact on my family," ICC Judge Gocha Lordkipanidze said in the report. And Khan said a transfer to his ex-wife for their children led to her bank account being frozen. Judges nearing the end of their mandates said they did not know whether they would be able to move money out of Europe.
"We are in limbo," ICC Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa said in the report.
The disruption also hit daily life. Officials said access to email, cloud storage, apps and services tied to companies like Apple, Amazon and PayPal was cut off or restricted, while hotel and travel bookings could be canceled without warning. Some said their Apple IDs were blocked, leaving them locked out of iCloud and app access. ICC Judge Beti Hohler said a friend who sent her a Christmas gift through Amazon ended up with his own Amazon accounts suspended.
Inside the court, judges and prosecutors said the pressure was aimed not just at them as individuals but at the institution's independence.
"Judges take decisions based on the law and the facts," Bossa said. "If we are punished for our decisions as judges, it is terrible for the rule of law and for the independence of the judiciary."
When the net widens
The threat does not stop at the court's front door.
The ICC cannot do its work alone. In places investigators cannot easily reach, it relies on outside groups to document abuses, identify victims and help build cases. And according to the coalition, Washington does not have to shut the court down to damage it. Pressure on the network around the court can still choke investigations and make justice harder to deliver.
Palestine is one of the clearest examples. Long before the U.S. sanctions, these outside groups were already operating under Israeli raids, surveillance, smear campaigns and "terrorist" labels rejected by European governments and U.N. experts. Then Washington added another layer.
The Trump administration first targeted Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner rights group, in June 2025 under a separate U.S. sanctions program. In July, it sanctioned Francesca Albanese, the U.N. expert on Palestinian rights. Then in September, it moved against Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, three groups that document reported abuses, support victims and push accountability.
Bank accounts were frozen or shut down. Salaries became harder or impossible to pay. U.S. and dual-national staff had to leave. Donors pulled back. Websites, social media accounts and digital services were cut off. Archives built over years were suddenly at risk.
For organizations in Gaza and the West Bank, that meant more than administrative trouble. It threatened the basic infrastructure of their work.
"The whole rationale of the sanctions was to silence us, stop us from doing our work, terrify us and terrify others," Issam Younis, director of Al Mezan, told the coalition.
U.N. investigators, ICC staff and other international monitors are frequently denied access to the occupied Palestinian territories, making local organizations like Younis' crucial for gathering evidence, identifying victims and preserving material that may later be used in court.
And critically, the impact reaches victims too. The coalition says sanctions spread into witness support, legal representation, evidence gathering and the wider ecosystem behind international criminal cases.
"The entire Rome Statute system is geared to serve victims. Any attack against the ICC through any means or measure to impede the delivery of its mandate, directly impact victims," Deborah Ruiz Verduzco, executive director of the ICC Trust Fund for Victims, said.
Some of the most consequential effects may never be fully visible.
"The greatest risk of sanctions is not to those who have already been sanctioned, but to the hundreds of people who will not take the decisions they need to take because they are afraid," ICC Judge Nicolas Guillou told the coalition. "If judges are afraid to judge, prosecutors are afraid to prosecute and lawyers are afraid to defend, we are no longer in a state governed by the rule of law. Fear means there is no justice."
Officials interviewed for the report warned that if a court backed by more than 120 states can be pressured by sanctioning judges over their rulings, the same tactic can be used against national judges, regulators and other international tribunals.
Khan put it more broadly: "What will happen to the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and other international organisations?" he asked. "We need to look at the whole architecture."
Not all targets are equal
Some ICC judges from less powerful countries said they were hit earlier and harder than colleagues from wealthier or more politically influential states involved in the same decisions. Bossa, of Uganda, said she and a colleague from Peru were initially singled out, while judges from Canada, the United Kingdom and Poland on the same bench were not.
"We had the impression that we were sanctioned because we come from countries that do not carry as much weight in the international sphere," Bossa said. "The discrimination hurt a lot."
The unevenness showed up in the response, too. Some governments spoke up quickly for their own nationals, while others stayed quiet. And while sanctions on ICC judges and prosecutors drew public backing from states and international officials, the reaction when Palestinian civil society groups were targeted was far more muted.
That stood out because Europe had reacted differently before. When Israel labeled several Palestinian rights groups as "terrorist organizations" in 2021, a number of European governments publicly pushed back and kept supporting them. This time, visible defense was much harder to find.
What emerged was a patchwork: support depended on who was targeted and whether their government stepped in. ICC member states and the European Union still have not built a broad, coordinated response, leaving some of those hit hardest, especially civil society groups, far more exposed.
The backers' test
This is not just a clash between Washington and one court anymore. It has become a test of whether the states that built the ICC system are willing to defend it.
The fixes laid out in the report are concrete: Use the EU blocking statute, tell banks and service providers not to overcomply, protect access to basic financial services, cut reliance on U.S.-controlled infrastructure and publicly defend not only ICC officials, but also the civil society groups and U.N. actors targeted for working with the court.
Most of those protections, however, still sit on the shelf. The problem, the coalition suggests, is less a lack of tools than a lack of political will. Brussels still prefers diplomatic outreach and targeted fixes, even as banks and service providers are left to manage the pressure on their own.
Zoe Paris, advocacy coordinator at the coalition, said the message across the interviews was clear: Those targeted are still standing, but ICC member states and the European Union have yet to mount the coordinated response needed to protect the court and the broader international justice system.
Still, the people caught in the middle keep making the same point. They are not backing down.
"They want to silence us, but we will not accept it," said Shawan Jabarin of Al-Haq.
And ICC Judge Reine Alapini-Gansou gave the clearest answer of all: "These measures have no effect on our dedication to our work. The victims around the world are waiting for us and watching us."
Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.
Source: Courthouse News Service
