ICC deputy prosecutor says court making significant progress despite US sanctions

The deputy prosecutor of the international criminal court has said new US sanctions are starting to be felt by its staff, but she insisted the measures have not hindered the institution's work.

The sanctions were announced on 9 October by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who branded the ICC, a frequent target of the Trump administration, a "rogue court" and declared: "Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC." Rubio gave the court a six-month grace period "to negotiate and present a solution to address our concerns", though it remains unclear what would satisfy Washington.

Nazhat Shameem Khan, who is co-running the prosecutor's office pending the appointment of a new chief prosecutor, said the Gaza war investigation and others had made "significant progress" since war crimes arrest warrants were issued in November 2024 for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Galant. No further charges over Gaza have been announced since late 2024, but Khan said that was because the court ruled earlier this year that all charges and warrant applications must stay secret until judges decide they can be made public.

"Even if we reach a stage of the investigations where it might be imminent, we may not discuss it publicly," she said in an interview with the Guardian. "And so while there might be an appearance that nothing is happening, I can assure you that there's significant progress in that particular situation as well as others."

Khan said some staff had run into banking problems even though the sanctions are not due to take effect until six months after their announcement, describing banks as "over-complying" to minimise risk while the scope of the measures is uncertain. "These are sanctions imposed on the institutions and, in principle, our individual members should not be impacted directly," the Fijian deputy prosecutor said. "But again, what I am hearing from members of our staff is that some of them are experiencing difficulties in banking."

The court is working to insulate itself from the hostile administration in Washington, switching its software from Microsoft to European alternatives and negotiating with service providers over banking and health insurance. "All the investigations across all situations continue. We haven't made any decision based on the sanctions to reduce our capability or reduce our output," Khan said, while acknowledging it was impossible to anticipate the full impact once the measures officially take effect.

Khan is no stranger to such measures: she was among 13 ICC staff first targeted by the US in February 2025. "Life without a credit card is inconvenient. It's amazing how many things now we cannot do around the world, particularly in relation to travel, without a credit card," she said, adding that her inconvenience was put into perspective by visits to refugee camps and sites of mass atrocities. "We see the faces of our victims for whom sanctions and credit cards are completely irrelevant. They just want justice."

American sanctions are not the only disruption facing the prosecutor's office. Formal investigations began in late November 2024 into allegations of sexual harassment against the former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. The British jurist, who is no relation to the deputy prosecutor, denied the charges and was removed in July this year after a vote by member states.

Rubio claimed without evidence this month that "globalist 'experts' an ocean away" wanted the ICC to prosecute US citizens. Khan said it was unclear what he meant, noting: "we certainly haven't brought any Americans before the court." She added that if the reference was to Afghanistan, the priority there is offences committed against women, girls and other vulnerable groups by the Taliban and by the Islamic State Khorasan. This month the court's pretrial chamber unsealed four arrest warrants against Taliban members on charges of gender persecution.

The ICC registrar is negotiating with the EU over blocking the sanctions or protecting the court in other ways, and on Thursday the European parliament awarded its Sakharov prize for freedom of thought to the court and its officials. Khan called the backing "a very important message that the staff at the court need to hear". "I think that the fact that there is so much attention on us is a reflection of how relevant we are," she said. "This is a court that provides an avenue of justice for victims who have nowhere else to go, who really want to cut past politics and want their voices to be heard."