WASHINGTON, Aug 18 — The United States imposed sanctions on Tuesday on the International Criminal Court’s president and a senior trial lawyer at the court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
\n\nThe move is the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against The Hague-based court, which was established in 2002 by the international community to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
\n\nThe U.S. is not a member of the court.
\n\nRubio said in a statement that he was imposing sanctions on Tomoko Akane, a Japanese judge who is president of the ICC, and Abdoulaye Seye, a senior trial lawyer and a Senegalese national, under a Trump executive order last year authorizing sanctions against the court.
\n\n“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,” Rubio said.
\n\nThe ICC condemned the move, saying in a statement that the measures undermine the rule of law.
\n\n“When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk,” the ICC said.
\n\nSeye is a senior trial lawyer on the prosecution team that sought an arrest…
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