Trump Sanctions ICC President Tomoko Akane

Section: International
Format: Special Report
Author: Sinisa Brkic (sb)

The United States has imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, pushing Washington’s confrontation with the Hague tribunal directly into its senior leadership. The measures are formally directed at two individuals, but their significance reaches much further. At stake is whether the financial power of the United States can be used to constrain an international court whose jurisdiction Washington fundamentally disputes.

Washington moves against the president of the court

The U.S. government designated Tomoko Akane of Japan and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal on August 18 under the sanctions framework President Donald Trump created for the International Criminal Court in February 2025. Their names were added to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, placing them inside one of Washington’s most consequential financial enforcement systems.

Akane is not simply another judge at the court. She has served as president of the ICC since 2024 and is one of the institution’s most visible representatives. Seye is a senior trial lawyer in the Office of the Prosecutor and has worked on the prosecution team involved in the case concerning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two had participated in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute officials whose governments had not consented to ICC jurisdiction. That explanation reflects the central American objection to the court: Washington rejects the proposition that an international tribunal created by a treaty the United States never ratified can exercise authority over American personnel, or over nationals of certain allied states that are also outside the Rome Statute system.

The ICC rejects that interpretation of its powers. It argues that its jurisdiction can arise from the territory on which alleged crimes were committed, even when the accused is a national of a country that is not a member of the court. The collision between those two positions is now being fought not only in legal argument, but through the machinery of U.S. sanctions.

What the sanctions actually mean for Akane and Seye

The immediate legal effect is substantial. Property and interests in property belonging to a designated person must be blocked when they are located in the United States or come into the possession or control of a U.S. person. American citizens, permanent residents and U.S. companies are generally prohibited from providing funds, goods or services to designated individuals unless an exemption or license applies.

Washington has therefore done more than prohibit Akane and Seye from opening a bank account in the United States. Any transaction involving them that encounters U.S. jurisdiction can become subject to blocking requirements. The sanctions framework also provides for restrictions on entry into the United States.

The Treasury Department issued a temporary general license permitting transactions necessary to wind down existing dealings involving Akane and Seye until September 17, 2026. That mechanism gives banks, companies and other parties a limited period to terminate affected relationships rather than requiring every transaction to stop immediately.

What the designation does not mean is equally important. It does not automatically order every bank in Europe, Japan or elsewhere to freeze every account belonging to the two officials solely because Washington has listed them. U.S. sanctions law directly binds U.S. persons and transactions within U.S. jurisdiction.

That distinction, however, is much less reassuring in practice than it appears on paper.

The real power lies beyond America’s borders

The United States occupies an exceptional position in international finance. Global banks depend heavily on access to U.S. markets, correspondent banking relationships and dollar clearing. International technology companies, payment processors, insurers and professional service providers frequently have American operations or legal exposure.

That creates a second layer of pressure which is not identical to the formal jurisdiction of the sanctions. Institutions outside the United States can decide that continuing to serve a designated person is commercially or legally too risky, particularly when transactions could touch U.S. infrastructure somewhere along the chain.

This phenomenon is often described as de-risking. A bank does not necessarily need to conclude that every conceivable transaction is prohibited before deciding that the safest course is to end the relationship entirely. For a sanctioned individual, the difference between a transaction being technically permissible and a bank being willing to process it can become academic.

The ICC has already experienced that problem. Earlier sanctions against court personnel disrupted access to banking and technology services, while organizations and contractors reconsidered cooperation because of possible U.S. exposure. The pressure therefore travels through an ecosystem that extends far beyond assets physically located in America.

This is the point at which a personal sanction begins to acquire institutional significance.

Can Washington financially isolate an international court?

Not completely, at least under the measures announced on August 18. The ICC itself has not been designated as a blocked entity by this action, and the court remains an international organization supported and funded by its states parties. Its bank accounts, payroll and entire institutional infrastructure have not simply become illegal for the world to service.

Yet the question is more complicated than whether the court’s name appears on a sanctions list. International institutions require judges, prosecutors, investigators, banks, insurers, software providers, travel services, outside experts and civil society partners. Pressure applied repeatedly to individuals and organizations inside that network can raise the cost of cooperation even without a formal prohibition against the institution as a whole.

The experience of earlier ICC sanctions illustrates the vulnerability. When Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was designated in 2025, reports emerged of frozen banking relationships, loss of access to technology services and organizations limiting their interaction with the court. Such effects demonstrated how American financial and corporate reach can magnify a targeted designation.

The cumulative effect matters more than any single blocked account. If banks become reluctant to process payments, technology companies restrict services, contractors withdraw and potential employees or experts fear sanctions exposure, the court’s formal independence can remain intact while its operational environment becomes progressively narrower.

This is why the latest designation carries particular weight. Sanctioning the president of the ICC moves the pressure to the institution’s highest judicial office.

Israel and Gaza are at the center of the confrontation

The immediate political background is the ICC’s work concerning the situation in the State of Palestine. In 2024 the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after judges found sufficient grounds under the Rome Statute for the warrants. Israel rejects the accusations and disputes the court’s jurisdiction.

The United States has strongly opposed the proceedings against Israeli officials. The Trump administration’s position is that the ICC cannot legitimately exercise jurisdiction over nationals of Israel because Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and has not accepted the court’s authority.

The ICC’s jurisdictional reasoning proceeds from a different premise. The court has held that its territorial jurisdiction in the Palestine situation extends to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, because Palestine is treated within the Rome Statute system as a state party. Under that interpretation, the nationality of a suspect does not by itself prevent the court from exercising jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed on territory within its competence.

That disagreement cannot responsibly be reduced to a claim that one side has simply ignored the law. It is a profound dispute over the reach of treaty based international criminal jurisdiction, state consent and territorial authority. Washington regards the ICC’s approach as an infringement of sovereignty, while the court maintains that it is applying the jurisdiction granted to it by the Rome Statute. The sanctions transform that legal conflict into a contest over institutional power.

The Afghanistan precedent still shapes Washington’s position

American hostility toward ICC jurisdiction predates the Gaza proceedings. The court’s investigation into Afghanistan brought the issue directly into U.S. national security policy because allegations examined in that situation included conduct attributed to American personnel.

Afghanistan was a state party to the Rome Statute, which gave the ICC a territorial basis for asserting jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed there regardless of the nationality of the suspected perpetrator. Washington rejected the prospect that U.S. service members or officials could be investigated by a court to which the United States had never submitted.

The issue produced sanctions during Trump’s first administration and remained part of the argument used when the sanctions architecture was revived in 2025. Although the prosecution later shifted its investigative priorities in Afghanistan, the underlying jurisdictional dispute was never resolved between Washington and The Hague.

For the United States, the concern therefore extends beyond Israel. The administration views the court’s territorial theory as a precedent that could expose American officials and military personnel to future ICC scrutiny whenever relevant conduct is alleged to have occurred within the territory of a state party.

For the ICC, accepting Washington’s position would sharply reduce the territorial reach contemplated by its founding treaty. If nationals of every nonmember state were categorically beyond the court’s reach, individuals from powerful states could potentially enjoy protection unavailable to nationals of states that joined the Rome Statute.

Akane is the latest target in a widening sanctions architecture

The August action did not emerge in isolation. Before Akane and Seye were added, the United States had already designated numerous ICC judges and prosecutors under Trump’s 2025 executive order. The first was Prosecutor Karim Khan, followed by several judges and senior members of the prosecution.

Four ICC judges were designated in June 2025. Four additional senior court officials were added in August of that year, followed by two more judges in December. Together with Khan, that meant eleven ICC officials had already been targeted before the latest action against Akane and Seye.

Washington has also used the same sanctions authority against actors outside the court itself, including Palestinian human rights organizations accused by the administration of supporting ICC action against Israel. The pattern shows that the sanctions mechanism is capable of reaching beyond judges and prosecutors into organizations that cooperate with international accountability efforts.

At the same time, the State Department has moved from retaliation against individual decisions toward an explicit political campaign against the institution. In July, Washington announced a broader effort aimed at constraining the ICC’s ability to operate and encouraging governments to reconsider participation in the Rome Statute system. That changes the strategic context. The sanctions are no longer best understood as an isolated response to a warrant or prosecutor. They are part of a sustained attempt to alter the balance of power between the United States and an international judicial institution.

The pressure is reaching the court’s member states

The ICC currently depends on its member governments not simply for financing but for political protection and practical cooperation. The court has no police force of its own. Arrest warrants ultimately depend on states, while institutional resilience depends on governments being willing to sustain the court despite pressure from more powerful countries.

The Netherlands, which hosts the ICC, criticized the latest U.S. action and reiterated support for the independence of international courts. Japan is also placed in an unusually sensitive position because the individual now sanctioned is a Japanese national serving as the court’s president, while Tokyo has long been an important political and financial supporter of the ICC system.

The broader landscape is no longer entirely favorable to The Hague. Several states have recently moved toward withdrawal from the Rome Statute, while Washington has openly encouraged governments to distance themselves from the institution. Those departures have their own national political causes and should not automatically be attributed to American pressure, but they nonetheless strengthen a trend that serves the administration’s strategic objective. The critical question for the court is therefore not merely how many sanctions it can withstand. It is whether its 125 state parties are prepared to absorb the financial and diplomatic consequences required to preserve the institution’s independence.

U.S. courts may yet test the sanctions strategy

The legality of Washington’s campaign is also being challenged inside the United States. Judges affected by earlier ICC sanctions have brought litigation against the Trump administration, while human rights organizations have filed separate cases arguing that the restrictions interfere with constitutionally protected activities.

Those proceedings have not produced a definitive judicial ruling invalidating the current sanctions framework. It would therefore be incorrect to describe the measures against Akane and Seye as unlawful as a settled matter of U.S. law.

The cases nevertheless introduce an important domestic constraint. Executive sanctions powers are extensive, particularly when invoked under national emergency authorities, but their application to judges, lawyers and organizations engaged in international legal proceedings raises questions that federal courts may eventually have to address. Until then, the sanctions remain operative. Banks and companies must respond to the rules that exist, not to legal outcomes that may or may not follow later.

The battle is now over whether financial power can shape international justice

The sanctioning of Tomoko Akane marks a new stage because it reaches the president of the court itself. Washington has not shut down the ICC, nor has it acquired any authority over the court’s judgments. What it has demonstrated is the capacity to make the personal and professional consequences of working at the institution considerably more severe.

That capacity derives from something the ICC cannot reproduce: control over access to the world’s most influential national financial system and enormous leverage over companies that operate through it. The Rome Statute gives the court legal authority within its own jurisdictional framework, but it does not give The Hague an equivalent instrument of economic power.

The confrontation therefore exposes a structural tension at the center of international law. Courts can issue warrants and states can write treaties, but international institutions still function inside a global financial and technological system in which a small number of countries possess disproportionate leverage.

For Washington, that leverage has become an instrument for resisting a court it regards as exceeding its mandate. For the ICC and its supporters, the sanctions raise the opposite concern: that financial coercion could make judicial independence conditional on the tolerance of a major power. The fate of Tomoko Akane’s bank accounts is only the immediate consequence. The larger question is whether an international criminal court can remain operationally independent when the world’s most powerful financial state has decided that weakening it is an explicit policy objective.