NEW YORK CITY: Independent experts at the UN on Monday strongly condemned recent US sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court, its personnel and any individuals or entities who cooperate with it.
The sanctions, authorized in an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on Feb. 6, sparked a wave of global concern for the future of international justice.
The ICC, the world’s top war-crimes court, issued arrest warrants in November last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and Hamas’ military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.
The court said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and Gallant intentionally targeted civilians during Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, and used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting deliveries of humanitarian aid to the territory. At the time of the ICC action, the death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza had surpassed 44,000.
Criticizing the US sanctions against the court, the UN experts said: “The order is an attack on global rule of law and strikes at the very heart of the international criminal justice system.
“The financial restrictions will undermine the ICC and its investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity across the world, including those committed against women and children.”
Trump’s executive order declares that “any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute protected persons” is a “threat to the national security and foreign policy” of the US. It declares a national emergency in response, demanding that America and its allies oppose any actions by the ICC against the US, Israel or any other nation that has not consented to the court’s jurisdiction.
The UN experts denounced these actions, describing them as a dangerous backward step in the fight for international justice.
The experts included Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on human rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories; Ben Saul, the special rapporteur on the promotion of human rights while countering terrorism, and George Katrougalos, an independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. Their statement was endorsed by several other experts.
“The jurisdiction of the ICC has been clearly defined by the Court itself and recognized through international law,” the experts stated. “By sanctioning the ICC, the United States is undermining the ‘never again’ legacy established after Nuremberg, which has been a cornerstone of evolving international criminal law since 1945.”
The ICC was established in 2002 as the court of last resort to prosecute individuals responsible for the most heinous atrocities worldwide, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.
The 125 member states of the court include Palestine, Ukraine, Canada, the UK and every country in the EU, but dozens of countries do not accept its jurisdiction, including Israel, the US, Russia and China.
The experts said the US executive order empowers war criminals and will deny justice to thousands of victims around the world, particularly women and children. It also mocks the global quest to “place law above force” and prevent atrocities, they added.
A core principle of the ICC is its commitment to holding the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression accountable, regardless of nationality. The experts stressed the importance of maintaining a judicial system in which justice applies equally to all.
“Upholding international law is a shared responsibility that strengthens, rather than undermines, global security, including that of the United States,” they said.
They welcomed the expressions of solidarity from UN member states who have reaffirmed their support for the crucial role the court plays in ensuring the principals of accountability and justice around the globe.
Imposing sanctions on ICC personnel is seen as a violation of the basic principles of judicial independence, said the experts, who pointed out that such action stands as a direct contradiction to human rights protections, specifically the fundamental right of individuals to carry out their professional duties without fear of retribution.
Any attempt to impede or intimidate an official of the ICC is punishable under Article 70 of the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the court. The US sanctions could be viewed as a violation of this provision, which seeks to protect officials from potential retaliation as a result of their work to administer justice.
The UN experts said they have shared their concerns with US authorities and called for a reevaluation of the sanctions.
Special rapporteurs are part of what is known as the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. They are independent experts who work on a voluntary basis, are not members of UN staff and are not paid for their work.
UN experts condemn US sanctions on International Criminal Court and call for reversal
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UN experts condemn US sanctions on International Criminal Court and call for reversal
- The sanctions, authorized in an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump, sparked a wave of global concern for the future of international justice
- ‘The order is an attack on global rule of law and strikes at the very heart of the international criminal justice system,’ the experts warn
Australia bans a citizen with alleged links to militant Daesh group from returning from Syria
- The woman was planning to join another 33 Australians and fly on Monday from Damascus to Australia, Burke said
- “These are horrific situations that have been brought on those children by actions of their parents”
MELBOURNE: Australia’s government banned an Australian citizen with alleged ties to the militant Daesh group from returning home from a detention camp in Syria, the latest development in the case of fraught repatriation of families of Daesh fighters.
The woman was planning to join another 33 Australians — 10 women and 23 children — and fly on Monday from Damascus, Syria, to Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday.
But the group was turned back by Syrian authorities to the Roj detention camp, due to unspecified procedural problems.
The Australian government had acted on news that the group planned to leave Syria, Burke said. He said the woman, whom he did not identify, had been issued with a temporary exclusion order on Monday and her lawyers had been provided with the paperwork on Wednesday.
She was an immigrant who left Australia for Syria sometime between 2013 and 2015, Burke said, declining to elaborate on whether she had children — though he generally blamed the parents for the predicaments of their offspring stranded in Syria.
“These are horrific situations that have been brought on those children by actions of their parents. They are terrible situations. But they have been brought on entirely by horrific decisions that their parents made,” Burke told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Burke has the power to use temporary exclusion orders to prevent high-risk citizens from returning to Australia for up to two years.
The laws were were introduced to in 2019 to prevent defeated Daesh fighters from returning to Australia. There are no public reports of an order being issued before.
Burke said security agencies had not advised that any of the other Australians in the group warranted an exclusion order. Such orders can’t be made against children younger than 14.
Confusing messages at a cramped camp
At the Roj camp, tucked in Syria’s northeastern corner near the border with Iraq, the Australian women who had expected to travel home refused to speak to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
One of the women, Zeinab Ahmad, said they had been advised by an attorney not to talk to journalists.
A security official at the camp, Chavrê Rojava, said that family members of the detainees — who she said were Australians of Lebanese origin — had traveled to Syria to arrange their return. They brought temporary passports that had been issued for the would-be returnees, Rojava said.
“We have no contact with the Australian government regarding this matter, as we are not part of the process,” she said. “We have left it to the families to resolve.”
Rojava said that after the group had departed the camp to travel to Damascus, they were contacted by a Syrian government official and warned to turn back. The families were “very disappointed” upon returning to the camp, she said.
“We recently requested that all countries and families come and take back their citizens,” Rojava said.
She added that Syrian authorities do not want to see a “repeat of what happened in Al-Hol camp” — a much larger camp, also in northeastern Syria that once housed tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, with alleged ties to Daesh.
Last month, during fighting between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which had controlled Al-Hol, guards abandoned their posts and many of the camp’s residents fled.
That raised concerns that Daesh members would regroup and stage new attacks in Syria.
The Syrian government then established control of Al-Hol and has begun moving its remaining residents to another camp in Aleppo province. The Kurdish-led force remains in control of Roj camp and a ceasefire is now in place.
The thorny issue of repatriating Daesh-linked foreign citizens
Former Daesh fighters from multiple countries, their wives and children have been detained in camps since the militant group lost control of its territory in Syria in 2019. Though defeated, the group still has sleeper cells that carry out deadly attacks in both Syria and Iraq.
Australian governments have repatriated Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps on two occasions. Other Australians have also returned without government assistance.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday reiterated his position announced a day earlier that his government would not help repatriate the latest group.
“These are people who chose to go overseas to align themselves with an ideology which is the caliphate, which is a brutal, reactionary ideology and that seeks to undermine and destroy our way of life,” Albanese told reporters.
He was referring to the militants’ capture of wide swaths of land more than a decade ago that stretched across Syria and Iraq, territory where Daesh established its so-called caliphate. Militant from foreign countries traveled to Syria at the time to join the Daesh. Over the years, they had families and raised children there.
“We are doing nothing to repatriate or to assist these people. I think it’s unfortunate that children are caught up in this, that’s not their decision, but it’s the decision of their parents or their mother,” Albanese added.
