US sanctions the International Criminal Court hours after ex-ICC judge Navi Pillay wins Nobel Peace Prize

The United States imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday 9 October, a few hours after Navi Pillay, a former judge of the court, was named winner of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, The Express Tribune reported, carrying Reuters. The US sanctions on the ICC go further than any before: earlier rounds named individual prosecutors and judges, while this one targets the court as an institution.

"President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. "We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off its resources and crippling its ability to operate."

What the sanctions do

US sanctions normally stop every US-based company from working with the sanctioned body. For the court in The Hague that can mean banks closing accounts, insurers ending cover and software companies cutting off service. Within hours the US Treasury issued four general licences that still allow some dealings: telecommunications, software, pension payments, and transactions linked to people held in ICC detention.

Rubio said the measures were built to give the court and its member states room to "address US concerns". The court had been preparing for months, the Tribune reported, moving its office computers from Microsoft software to open-source alternatives and making new banking and health insurance arrangements.

How the ICC responded

Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told Reuters the sanctions "must be condemned" and were meant "to undermine the rule of law internationally". "Our work will continue across all our situations, our investigations and our prosecutions," she said. The UN Secretary General warned the move could deal "a serious blow" to efforts to hold people to account for grave crimes, the Tribune reported.

Why now

Washington has attacked the court over its arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and over a past investigation into US soldiers in Afghanistan that the court has since closed. Sanctions on court officials in Trump's first term were lifted under Joe Biden, and new ones followed days after Trump returned in January 2025.

The timing set up a clash with the Nobel committee. Pillay sat on the ICC's Appeals Chamber from 2003 to 2008 and later led the UN commission that found genocide in Gaza. In its citation the committee said it wanted to "issue a reminder" at a time when "judges and institutions of international law are under political attack". Our story on the prize: Navi Pillay wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize.

Who is in the ICC, and where Pakistan stands

The court has 125 member states, including every EU country and every NATO member except the United States and Turkiye, so the sanctions put Washington on a collision course with its closest allies, starting with the Netherlands, where the court sits. Pakistan is not a member: it has not joined the Rome Statute that created the court, as the ICC's own list of states parties shows, and neither have India, China or the United States.

For readers here, the direct effect is small. The bigger question is what Europe does next: the court's registrar, Osvaldo Zavala Giler, had already asked the EU this week to be ready to respond, and how far the EU goes to shield the court will decide whether it can keep paying staff and running its cases. Following the dollar's moves against the rupee? Our dollar rate page updates through the day.