"Today we take the next step, because the ICC continues to target Americans, sadly," Pompeo said."These coercive acts, directed at an international judicial institution and its civil servants, are unprecedented and constitute serious attacks against the court, the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice, and the rule of law more generally," it said in a statement.
Despite the new sanctions, the ICC appeared to give no ground on the issue, saying it"continues to stand firmly by its personnel and its mission of fighting impunity for the world's most serious crimes." But Washington's move also added to the broader pressure on the ICC to shore up its legitimacy, 18 years after it was founded to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
In 2002, the US Congress even passed the so-called"Hague Invasion Act" allowing the US president to authorise military force to free any US personnel held by the ICC, in theory making an invasion of Dutch shores a possibility.But the investigation into alleged wartime atrocities in Afghanistan possibly involving US military and civilian officials has turned Washington's low-level opposition into a concerted campaign against the institution.