US sanctions push ICC member states’ annual meeting out of New York

Filed 6h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Carol M. Highsmith · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

The International Criminal Court's Assembly of States Parties will hold its 25th session in The Hague instead of at UN headquarters in New York, after U.S. sanctions and visa restrictions complicated attendance. The court says the Assembly's bureau approved the move following consultations with member states.

The friction traces back to arrest warrants issued in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged Gaza war crimes. President Trump responded with an executive order sanctioning the court in February 2025, which froze assets, restricted entry, and barred Americans from providing services to sanctioned officials including the prosecutor and later several judges.

Dutch officials, meanwhile, are reportedly bracing for further U.S. sanctions and exploring how to keep the court's operations, including its detention facility and witness protections, funded and running. The Assembly's president stressed the venue change is specific to this year and not a permanent shift.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A court set up to hold the powerful accountable now can't get its own delegates a room at the table where the rest of the world usually meets. Sanctioning judges and freezing a prosecutor's bank account is one way to say you don't recognize an institution's authority, but it's also a pretty loud way of admitting you're worried it might have some. The Hague was always the backup plan; it's just not supposed to be the only plan.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Relent · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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