On 9 October 2026, the Trump administration added the ICC as an entity to the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN), a measure traditionally reserved for transnational gangs and global militant networks. These actions build on a national emergency declared by President Donald Trump under a framework authorizing sanctions against ICC investigations targeting US or allied personnel without consent.
The measures are explicitly designed to dismantle the court's financial operations and undermine its ability to function globally. A strict prohibition prevents US entities from conducting any transactions with the ICC, cutting it off from the global financial system. The framework blocks all property, financial interests, and assets within US jurisdiction belonging to the ICC or individuals assisting its investigations against protected persons.
The sanctions freeze essential IT agreements and software services the court requires from US companies to run its daily enterprise operations, pay staff, and pursue cases. OFAC issued four General Licenses (GLs 13, 14, 15, and 16) permitting a 180-day grace period for limited operations, telecommunications, enterprise software wind-downs, and pension payments. The US has suspended both immigrant and non-immigrant entry into the country for sanctioned officials, employees, agents, and their immediate families.
The escalation targets the court as a complete institution, alongside individual figures. The court itself is blacklisted. Prior to blacklisting the institution, the US had already sanctioned 17 officials, including ICC President Tomoko Akane (a Japanese judge) and Senior Trial Lawyer Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal in August 2026, as well as Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan under the primary sanctions criteria.
Israel, the United States, China, Russia, and India are not members of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Out of over 120 member states globally, the five superpowers have explicitly chosen not to ratify the Rome Statute—the treaty that established the court—primarily to protect their national sovereignty and military personnel from external jurisdiction.
Yesterday, Oct 9, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an explicit ultimatum stating: "We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling their ability to operate. Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC."
