US President Donald Trump has authorized economic sanctions against members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) involved in the investigation of United States Military servicemen for possible war crimes in Afghanistan.
The US President alleges that the investigations are politically motivated and vowed that no US Military service member active or retired will ever stand trial before the ICC at the Hague.
He referred to the ICC as an organization of dubious integrity being egged on and supported by Russia.
The executive order authorizes US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to block assets of ICC employees in the United States involved in the investigation. The Order also authorizes Pompeo to block the affected individuals as well as their family members from entering the United States.
Fatou Bensouda, a prosecutor with the ICC wants to investigate alleged war crimes committed between 2003 and 2014 in Afghanistan by US Military forces and the CIA.
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The US is not a member of the ICC and Trump promptly reminded the organisation of this fact. furthermore, the international organisation only has jurisdiction when a member state is unable or unwilling to prosecute war crimes itself.
Afghanistan is a member of the ICC and a signatory to the Rome Statute hut has argued that it has the ability to prosecute war crimes locally.
According to White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany;
“The International Criminal Court’s actions are an attack on the rights of the American people and threaten to infringe upon our national sovereignty.
“The International Criminal Court was established to provide accountability for war crimes, but in practice it has been an unaccountable and ineffective international bureaucracy that targets and threatens United States personnel as well as personnel of our allies and partners.”
In practice the court is an unaccountable, ineffective and out-of-control international bureaucracy that threatens American service members and intelligence officers and those of our allies.”
“We have reason to believe there is corruption and misconduct at the highest levels of the ICC’s office of prosecutor, calling into question the integrity of this investigation into American personnel. We are concerned that Russia may be manipulating the ICC by encouraging these allegations into U.S. personnel.”