[Salon] U.S. Sanctions Two Additional ICC Judges, Citing Court's 'Politicized Actions Targeting Israel'

FM: John Whitbeck

As reported in the HAARETZ article transmitted below, the U.S. government's full-scale war against international law continues and is unrelenting.

Notably, this article quotes a Trump administration official saying: "There is growing concern ... that in 2029 the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them. That is unacceptable, and we will not allow it to happen."

Of course, there would be no cause for concern if Messrs. Trump, Vance, Hegseth and others were not perpetrating or being actively complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Might compliance with international law be a conceivable option for alleviating this concern?

NOTE: It is intriguing that President Trump would make public his conviction that he is entitled both to the Nobel Peace Prize and to immunity from prosecution for war crimes.

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2025-12-18/ty-article/.premium/u-s-sanctions-two-more-icc-judges-citing-courts-politicized-actions-targeting-israel/0000019b-324c-d932-a7bf-7f6d23af0000

U.S. Sanctions Two Additional ICC Judges, Citing Court's 'Politicized Actions Targeting Israel'

By Ben Samuels

December 18, 2025

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Thursday that the U.S. was sanctioning two additional International Criminal Court judges and accused them of engaging in illegitimate targeting of Israel.

Rubio said that the two judges, Gocha Lordkipanidze of Georgia and Eldenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia, had "directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel's consent."

According to the secretary of state, Lordkipanidze and Damdin had supported the majority opinion in the ICC's Monday decision to reject an appeal filed by Israel against the arrest warrants issued last year for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The judges refused to overturn a lower court ruling that the prosecution's probe into alleged crimes under the court's jurisdiction may include events after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, leaving the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant in effect.

"The ICC has continued to engage in politicized actions targeting Israel, which sets a dangerous precedent for all nations," Rubio added. "We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject U.S. and Israeli persons to the ICC's jurisdiction."

"Our message to the court has been clear: the United States and Israel are not party to the Rome Statute and therefore reject the ICC's jurisdiction," he said.

Though Israel and the United States are not party to the ICC, the court recognizes the state of Palestine as a member and has ruled that this gives it jurisdiction over actions that occur within Palestinian territory. Israel and the United States reject this.

"We will continue to respond with significant and tangible consequences to the ICC's lawfare and overreach," the secretary of state said.

Israel's Prime Minister's Office welcomed the sanctions, praising what it called Washington's "decisive leadershp" in confronting "lawfare." In a series of posts on X, the PMO said it "appreciates the decisive leadership and strong action" of Rubio and President Donald Trump, accusing Judges Lordkipanidze and Damdin of backing ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan in a "legally specious effort to criminalize the State of Israel."

The PMO added that Khan is "credibly accused of committing serious sexual crimes" and is acting to "extricate himself from justice," saying the judges' decision showed that the ICC is "not a court of law, but a political tool of international lawfare."

The statement added that as long as the ICC "refuses to abide by its own rules of complementarity" and claims jurisdiction over non-member states, it "cannot be treated as an institution of law," instead describing the court as "a hostile political body" pursuing unlawful prosecutions against Israel and the United States.

The ICC strongly rejected the U.S. sanctions, saying that they are "a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution," and warned that targeting judges and prosecutors "undermines the rule of law."

The court added, "We stand firmly behind our personnel and behind victims of unimaginable atrocities. The Court will continue its work, with all partners, to ensure the effective and independent implementation of its mandate."

In June, the Trump administration sanctioned four ICC judges over the tribunal's investigation into alleged war crimes by Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza and in the West Bank.

Earlier this month, a White House official told Reuters that the administration is threatening new U.S. sanctions on the court if it does not meet its demands: amending the court's founding document to ensure it does not investigate President Donald Trump and his top officials; dropping investigations of Israeli leaders over the Gaza war; and formally ending an earlier probe of U.S. troops over their actions in Afghanistan.

Washington may penalize more ICC officials and could sanction the court itself, the official said. He added that the White House has communicated its demands to ICC members, some of whom are U.S. allies, and has also made them known to the court.

ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant last year for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.

An arrest warrant was also issued against late Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (also known as Mohammed Deif). In August, Israeli authorities confirmed that Deif had been killed in an IDF strike a month prior.

In March 2020, prosecutors opened an investigation in Afghanistan that included possible crimes by U.S. troops. Since 2021, the court has deprioritized looking into the role of the U.S., but it has not formally ended its probe.

To force the war tribunal to drop these charges, the U.S. earlier this year slapped sanctions on nine ICC officials, including judges and prosecutors. But it has stopped short of imposing sanctions on the court as an entity, which would severely disrupt the tribunal's work.

"There is growing concern ... that in 2029 the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them," the Trump administration official said. "That is unacceptable, and we will not allow it to happen."