On Tuesday, Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-led effort to advance legislation imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), citing concerns about its broad impact on US allies and businesses, most notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against whom the ICC had issued an arrest warrant.
The bill fell short of the 60 votes needed to proceed, with a final tally of 54 to 45. Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote in favor of moving the measure forward.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been facing challenges in keeping his caucus unified as the GOP is pushing politically tough votes for Democrats. Earlier this month, a significant number of Democrats supported a Republican-led immigration bill. With the GOP now holding full control, more tough votes are expected as they leverage their trifecta.
Senate Democrats had pushed for a bipartisan compromise on the ICC sanctions bill to ensure that US allies and American companies working with the court would not be unintentionally affected by the sanctions, which were primarily intended to retaliate against the ICC’s war crimes investigations involving Israel.
The House of Representatives approved the ICC Act earlier this month with a vote of 243-140, with the support of 45 Democrats. The bill requires the President to impose sanctions within 60 days on anyone who “directly engages in or otherwise assists the International Criminal Court’s efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute” US citizens or citizens of US-allied states that are not party to the ICC’s Rome Statute – meaning Israel.
On his first day in office (2nd term), President Donald J. Trump on Monday signed the “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions Executive Order,” among them former President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14022 of April 1, 2021, titled, “Termination of Emergency with Respect to the International Criminal Court.”
The 2021 executive order read, “I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, find that, although the United States continues to object to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) assertions of jurisdiction over personnel of such non-States Parties as the United States and its allies absent their consent or referral by the United Nations Security Council, and will vigorously protect current and former United States personnel from any attempts to exercise such jurisdiction – the threat and imposition of financial sanctions against the Court, its personnel, and those who assist it are not an effective or appropriate strategy for addressing the United States’ concerns with the ICC.”
Biden asserted, “Accordingly, I hereby terminate the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13928 of June 11, 2020 (Blocking Property of Certain Persons Associated with the International Criminal Court), and revoke that order.”
On September 2, 2020, the United States government imposed sanctions on ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and senior prosecution official Phakiso Mochochoko. Additionally, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced restrictions on visas to certain unnamed individuals involved in the ICC’s efforts to investigate US personnel.
In early January, President-elect Donald Trump’s team revealed its plans to implement devastating sanctions against the ICC immediately after taking office. The sanctions package was going to target both individual ICC personnel, including judges and prosecutors, and the institution as a whole, classifying the ICC as an organization threatening US interests, employing designation procedures similar to those used by the State Department for terrorist organizations globally.
This designation would have triggered severe restrictions on anyone involved with the court’s operations. Trump can still issue an executive order mimicking the bill that has just been rejected by the Senate.
