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President Donald Trump has introduced sanctions towards the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its supposed “targeting” of the U.S. and Israel.
Trump signed an government order on Thursday, accusing the ICC of “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
The order puts visa and financial sanctions on people working on ICC probes of U.S. citizens or allies.
The House of Representatives voted to sanction the court in January following the arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that the court issued amid war crimes allegations in Gaza, claims Israel rejects. The court also issued a warrant for a Hamas commander, the BBC noted.
The ICC responded to the sanctions, saying that it “regrets any makes an attempt to undermine the court docket’s independence, integrity and impartiality.”
The U.S. is just not a member of the worldwide court docket and has pushed again on quite a few events towards any jurisdiction by the court docket over U.S. residents or officers.
“The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest,” Trump’s government order states.
Trump issued an government order sanctioning the International Criminal Court (EPA)
“This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States government and our allies, including Israel,” the order says.
The Trump administration is alleging that the ICC, which is predicated within the Hague within the Netherlands, is setting up a “shameful moral equivalency” between Israel and Hamas because it issued the warrants for the leaders of Israel and the Hamas commander concurrently in response to a reality sheet shared by the White House.
The Trump administration thinks that the court docket is limiting Israel’s proper to self-defense because it accuses the court docket of not Iran and anti-Israel teams. The president additionally enacted measures to sanction the court docket throughout his first time period in workplace, imposing sanctions on ICC officers probing if American forces have been responsible of struggle crimes in Afghanistan. The ICC known as the sanctions an “unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law,” according to the BBC.
The ICC was created in 2002 following the breaking up of Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda with the intent that it was going to investigate allegations of atrocities. But the court can only handle crimes committed after July of that year when the Rome Statute went into effect and the court was established.
The U.S. and Israel are not part of the Rome Statute, which has been ratified by 120 countries and signed by another 34 countries, which may ratify it at a future date.
“Both nations are thriving democracies with militaries that strictly adhere to the legal guidelines of struggle,” the chief order states.
“The United States unequivocally opposes and expects our allies to oppose any ICC actions against the United States, Israel, or any other ally of the United States that has not consented to ICC jurisdiction,” it provides.
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