Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions on Thursday against four judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC). “These individuals directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without consent from the United States or Israel,” Rubio wrote. “The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion. … This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.”

The sanctions prevent the judges from traveling to the United States. They also freeze all assets belonging to the judges within the U.S. or with the possession of Americans. The financial sanctions are particularly effective due to the dominance of the U.S. dollar and the international reach of American financial institutions.

The four judges targeted by the sanctions are “Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.” Balungi Bossa and Ibanez Carranza authorized an investigation into American soldiers over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. Hohler and Alapini Gansou are the two judges who issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on spurious charges of humanitarian crimes in Gaza.

Rubio’s sanction designations implemented President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court,” which Trump issued on February 6. Trump ordered the Secretary of State to identify and sanction “any foreign person determined … to have directly engaged in any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute” individuals from America and its ally Israel.

Trump’s order already imposed sanctions on the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who argued that Netanyahu and Gallant had committed war crimes in Gaza, despite extensive evidence that the Israeli military takes special pains to avoid civilian casualties. Khan resigned from the position in May 2025 amid an ongoing sexual misconduct probe, which began before his investigation into Israel’s top officials.

The primary rationale for U.S. sanctions against ICC officials was national sovereignty. “The ICC has, without a legitimate basis, asserted jurisdiction over and opened preliminary investigations concerning personnel of the United States and certain of its allies, including Israel,” Trump’s executive order stated.

“The ICC has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel, as neither country is party to the Rome Statute or a member of the ICC. Neither country has ever recognized the ICC’s jurisdiction, and both nations are thriving democracies with militaries that strictly adhere to the laws of war,” it argued.

“The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent,” the order declared, “directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest.”

Many U.S. allies, including many European countries, Japan, and South Korea, are party to the Rome Statute and therefore do acknowledge the ICC’s jurisdiction in their territory. If the ICC issued arrest warrants against U.S. servicemembers, whose government is not a party to the treaty, these member states may still feel duty-bound to arrest those servicemembers if they deployed or traveled to that country.

“This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States Government and our allies, including Israel,” Trump’s order declared.

This is not a novel legal theory invented by the Trump administration to punish those it sees as political opponents. In 2002, Congress overwhelmingly passed the “American Servicemembers’ Protection Act” (22 U.S.C. 7421 et seq.), in which Congress declared that “The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute and will not be bound by any of its terms.”

Trump’s order specifically cited the Act, stating, “In addition to exposing members of the Armed Forces of the United States to the risk of international criminal prosecution, the Rome Statute creates a risk that the President and other senior elected and appointed officials of the United States Government may be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.”

The Trump administration’s sanctions against the ICC provide a contrast with the policy pursued by his predecessor, President Joe Biden. Biden took no action against the ICC for targeting either Americans or Israelis.

In fact, the Biden administration seemed to view international criticism as another piece of leverage to press Israel into unfavorable peace terms. On March 25, 2024, the Biden administration declined to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, without even mentioning Hamas (the Biden administration had vetoed such measures in the past). On June 4, 2025, the Trump administration vetoed another U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, thus restoring the traditional American policy of vetoing resolutions that unjustly condemned Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly thanked President Trump for sanctioning the ICC judges. “Thank you President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio for imposing sanctions against the politicized judges of the ICC,” he wrote. “You have justly stood up for the right of Israel, [t]he United States and all democracies to defend themselves against savage terror.”