EU urged to use obscure blocking statute to protect International Criminal Court from Trump sanctions

The EU has been urged to hit back at Donald Trump’s administration’s sanctions campaign against the International Criminal Court – by invoking a little-known ‘blocking statute’ that would ban companies and banks from complying with the sanctions. The Trump administration has stepped up its campaign to break the Hague-based court by withdrawing from the Rome Statute that created it and urging its allies to do the same. And last week, US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced the imposition of sanctions including asset freezes and financial sanctions on 18 August, targeting the ICC’s president Judge Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, a senior trial lawyer in the court’s prosecution office. Rubio called the ICC a “corrupt and fatally-politicised supranational court”. Though US officials have rarely been targeted by ICC indictments, Rubio’s move is part of a broader Trump administration push to undermine the UN and other multilateral organisations. On Wednesday (19 August), the EU’s diplomatic chief, Kaja Kallas, offered the EU’s “unwavering support” for the ICC, which she described as a “cornerstone of the international criminal justice system and the global fight against impunity”. In co-ordinated statements on X, meanwhile, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa gave their backing for the court. “The ICC helps deliver justice to the victims of some of the world’s most horrific crimes," they said, adding that "to carry out this essential work, its judges and officials must be able to act independently and without external pressure.” But ICC and some EU officials want the bloc to go further in response to the US sanctions. In March 2025, Akane told a European Parliament hearing that the EU should bring the ICC within the scope of its blocking statute, the 1996 regulation that prohibits European operators from complying with foreign extraterritorial sanctions.