International Criminal Court buffers operations against potential U.S. sanctions

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ICC prepares for U.S. sanctions

Highlights

Deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan says the ICC has implemented operational safeguards such as openDesk software and pre-paid salaries to mitigate potential U.S. sanctions disruptions.
Thirteen ICC officials, including half of the tribunal's judges, face U.S. sanctions causing practical problems like blocked credit cards, cancelled hotel bookings, and increased risk from secondary sanctions.
ICC pressure escalates after 2024 arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, even as the court secures a conviction of Mahamat Said Abdel Kani for 2013 crimes against humanity.

Operational safeguards against wider restrictions

As reported by the Financial Times, deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan says the court has spent the past year building protections against any future court-wide U.S. sanctions and has not received formal notice of new measures despite hearing rumours of impending action.

Khan, who is co-running the prosecutor's office after former chief prosecutor Karim Khan was removed this summer, says the ICC has worked to make itself more autonomous. She says the tribunal has shifted office software from Microsoft to Germany's openDesk, arranged banking and health insurance workarounds and in some cases paid employees months in advance to reduce the risk of payroll disruption.

She adds that the provisions remain a work in progress, but that the court has made significant advances in limiting the effect of any restrictions. Court officials decline to detail the financial and insurance arrangements further, arguing that disclosure could undermine their effectiveness.

Political and operational fallout for the tribunal

The threat of broader sanctions grows after Trump tells the UN General Assembly this week that the ICC is "out of control" and an "evil group of people", while urging member states to leave the institution. His administration has already sanctioned 13 court officials, including half of the ICC's 18 judges, creating practical problems ranging from blocked credit card access to cancelled hotel bookings and courier restrictions.

U.S. financial sanctions can also trigger secondary pressure on non-U.S. banks and companies that continue dealing with sanctioned parties, raising the risk that service providers outside the U.S. pull back from the court. Khan says some sanctioned individuals at the ICC have faced "over-compliance" by institutions and have had to find ways around those limits to continue functioning.

Trump's criticism of the court intensifies in his second term after the ICC issues arrest warrants in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza. The U.S. and Israel are not ICC members, but the court says it has jurisdiction because Palestine is a member and the alleged crimes took place on its territory.

Broader pressure on the institution also includes internal turmoil following sexual misconduct allegations against Karim Khan, which he denies. Even so, the court secures a rare conviction this week when Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, a former senior member of the Séléka rebel movement in the Central African Republic, is found guilty of multiple crimes against humanity committed in 2013.

Our earlier report on the $84 million freeze of Capstone-linked accounts detailed how U.S. prosecutors targeted payment channels allegedly used to provide crypto-related banking access. It also highlighted how the action intensified banking and liquidity pressures for intermediaries such as EQIBank and underscored the wider challenge crypto firms like Tether and Bitfinex face in maintaining reliable access to mainstream financial services.

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