World News
United States sanctions the president of the International Criminal Court
By Staff Writer | 19 August 2026
Tomoko Akane, the Japanese judge who presides over the court, was designated on Tuesday along with a senior trial lawyer. The measures bar entry to the United States and cut both off from its financial system. The court said the step places the international legal order at risk.
The United States imposed sanctions on Tuesday on Tomoko Akane, the Japanese judge who is president of the International Criminal Court, and on Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, a senior trial lawyer at the same court. The designations appeared on the United States Treasury website. They are the latest in a series of measures aimed at the institution, which was established in 2002 to try genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction
Marco Rubio, United States Secretary of State
The practical effect of a designation of this kind is narrow to describe and wide in operation. It freezes any assets the person holds in the United States, bars entry to the country, and prohibits transactions through the United States financial system. Almost every internationally operating bank has close ties to that system, so the reach extends well beyond American institutions. The Treasury issued a general licence on Tuesday authorising the wind-down of transactions involving Akane until 17 September.
The court's answer
The court responded the same day, saying the measures undermine the rule of law.
When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk
The International Criminal Court, in a statement
The dispute has a long run-up. The United States signed the treaty establishing the court but never ratified it, and has never been a member. Neither Israel nor Russia is a member either. Sanctions were imposed last year on several of the court's prosecutors and judges, and the stated reason then was the arrest warrants issued in 2024 for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the former Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, together with an earlier examination of United States personnel in Afghanistan. The court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in 2023, which drew arrest warrants from Moscow against senior court officials in return.
Litigation on both sides of it
The designations are being challenged in the American courts. Three judges of the International Criminal Court sued the administration in June, arguing that the measures are unlawful. Last week four campaigning organisations brought a separate action in a New York court, saying the sanctions block victims of war crimes from seeking justice through the institution built to hear them.
The court asserts jurisdiction only where a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute atrocity crimes itself. Its founding statute also lets it try such crimes committed on the territory of a member state by nationals of states that are not members, which is the provision the current dispute turns on.
Last month the United States opened a diplomatic campaign asking partner countries to leave the court. Chad and Venezuela have announced withdrawals. The court has said that countries taking that step risk weakening the collective pursuit of accountability. The United States secretary of state said last month that the campaign would be stepped up, and set out the concern as being for American service personnel and for officials carrying out immigration policy and strikes on vessels suspected of carrying drugs. The president has said separately that the campaign is aimed at protecting the Israeli prime minister and others rather than himself.
What is new here is the seniority. Previous designations reached prosecutors and individual judges. This one reaches the judge who presides over the institution, and it comes with a dated wind-down licence rather than an open one. Any bank, insurer or professional firm holding an engagement that touches the court now has a compliance question with 17 September written on it, and the answer will be given by counterparties in the payments chain long before it is given by a court.