The State Department is slapping sanctions on two International Criminal Court judges for the “illegitimate targeting” of Israel.
The ICC has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and issued arrest warrants for top officials such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is aiming the sanctions at ICC judges Gocha Lordkipanidze of Georgia and Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia. He said those judges have “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent, including voting with the majority in favor of the ICC’s ruling against Israel’s appeal on December 15.”
The State Department has often retaliated against the ICC for its actions against Israel, issuing sanctions against several ICC officials in August for “transgressions against the United States and Israel.”
Rubio said the ICC continues to engage in “politicized actions targeting Israel,” which “set a dangerous precedent for all nations.”
“We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject U.S. and Israeli persons to the ICC’s jurisdiction,” he said.
“Our message to the Court has been clear: the United States and Israel are not party to the Rome Statute and therefore reject the ICC’s jurisdiction. We will continue to respond with significant and tangible consequences to the ICC’s lawfare and overreach,” Rubio added.
The sanctions have been designated via President Donald Trump’s February executive order titled “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court.”
Georgian judge Lordkipanidze has served on the court since 2021 and is serving a nine-year term set to expire in 2030. He has connections to the U.S. — Lordkipanidze holds a master’s degree from Harvard University and studied for his doctorate at Fordham Law School.
The Mongolian judge, Damdin, joined the ICC last year and is still in the early part of his term. The ICC said he “has over three decades of experience in criminal justice, encompassing roles as a judge, prosecutor, and criminal defense counsel.” He worked as a judge for the Mongolian Supreme Court for over a decade.
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The sanctions come after the ICC rejected an Israeli attempt to halt its Gaza investigation. The judges on the court refused to overturn a lower court’s ruling that the prosecution can include events following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel in its war crimes investigation.
The judges issuing the appeal ruling included Damdin and Lordkipanidze.
