Human rights orgs cut ties with ICC under US sanctions pressure

At least 20 human rights organizations have ended or considerably reduced cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague over US-imposed sanctions against the court and its employees, and that may just be the tip of the iceberg.

So found investigative journalism platform Investico and German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung after surveying 100 non-profit organizations, including big names like Human Rights Watch and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The Trump administration has declared war on what it calls a “rogue court”, sanctioning judges, prosecutors, human rights organisations and, in October, the court as a whole.

“They want more power, and they want it at the expense of our sovereignty as a nation,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X at the time.

“And President Trump will never allow the ICC to prosecute Americans… We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources, and crippling their ability to operate against us. The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC.”

ICC employees have faced visa restrictions, a loss of access to their American property and financial assets and seen their accounts with American financial service institutions cut as a result of the sanctions, with one judge saying she lost access to all her American credit cards earlier this year.

Human rights organizations

While human rights organizations don’t work directly for the court, they provide valuable information in criminal cases, including eyewitness testimony and local law knowhow.

“They are a very important part of our work,” former Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told Investico. “They do not conduct investigations on our behalf, but they do provide us with leads, which help us find ways to substantiate evidence.”

Bensouda worked at the ICC until 2021 and was herself sanctioned by the US in 2020, which froze her American assets.

Chilling effect

Some organizations not directly covered by the sanctions have also stopped cooperating with the ICC.

“We cannot accept the risk of being sanctioned ourselves and that all our other work is at risk,” a German NGO told the researchers.

Save the Children Netherlands also says it is struggling to find new ways of working with the court.

As the host country of the ICC, the Netherlands is obliged to protect the court’s work from “interference”. But a spokesperson for the foreign affairs ministry told Investico that the country bears “no special responsibility as a host country” to protect NGOs from the consequences of sanctions.

Midterm elections

While Democrats won control of the US House and Senate in this week’s midterm elections, that won’t change the current sanctions.

“That foreign policy is firmly in the hands of the White House,” legal historian Iva Vukušić from Utrecht University told Dutch News. “But the election results may distract the White House with domestic issues and investigations against them and whatnot. It also changes the mood of invincibility of the White House and that may hold them back a bit.”