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LAST UPDATE | 7 Feb
TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has called on US president Donald Trump to withdraw an executive order he signed to authorise sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Trump signed an executive yesterday claiming that the court in The Hague had “abused its power” by issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who held talks with the US president on Tuesday.
He ordered asset freezes and travel bans against ICC officials, employees and their family members, along with anyone deemed to have helped the court’s investigations.
The ICC today condemned the move, which it said sought to “harm its independent and impartial judicial work”.
“The Court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” it said in a statement.
Neither the US nor Israel are members of the ICC.
Speaking today, Martin remarked that “Ireland has been a strong supporter of the international court system and international humanitarian law”.
Martin described Trump’s executive order to impose sanctions on the ICC as a “serious decision” and added: “I would ask that the decision be rescinded and withdrawn because we do need international rule of law.”
Trump’s order said the tribunal had engaged in “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel,” referring to ICC probes into alleged war crimes by US service members in Afghanistan and Israeli troops in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the EU warned the move was a threat to its independence.
“Sanctioning the ICC threatens the Court’s independence and undermines the international criminal justice system as a whole,” Antonio Costa, who heads the European Council representing the EU’s 27 member states, wrote on X.
The sanctions are a show of support after Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, during which Trump unveiled a plan for the United States to “take over” Gaza and move Palestinians to other Middle Eastern countries.
The UN and legal experts have said Trump’s plan would be illegal under international law. Forcible displacement is also a crime under the ICC’s governing Rome Statute.
Following a request by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, judges issued arrest warrants on 21 November for Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif – whom Israel says is dead.
The court said it had found “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore “criminal responsibility” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare during the Gaza war, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Netanyahu has accused the court of anti-Semitism.
Martin today said that he has met with ICC prosecutor Khan and that he doesn’t believe “he has any agenda against Israel or against the US”.
“There are challenges, there are disputes, that I acknowledge,” said Martin this morning, “but I believe that the people working in the ICC are acting in good faith and don’t have any agenda against any particular country.”
Israel has praised Trump for imposing sanctions on the ICC, calling the court’s actions against Israel “immoral” and illegitimate.
“I strongly commend @POTUS President Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the so-called ‘international criminal court’,” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on X, adding the ICC’s actions were “immoral and have no legal basis”.
Last month, the US House of Representatives voted to sanction the ICC in protest at its arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
During his first term, Trump imposed financial sanctions and a visa ban on the ICC’s then-prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and other senior officials and staff in 2020.
Describing it as a “kangaroo court,” his then-administration made the move after Bensouda launched an investigation into allegations of war crimes against US soldiers in Afghanistan.
While his order at the time did not name Israel, Trump administration officials said they were also angered by Bensouda’s opening of a probe into the situation in Palestine in 2019.
Former US President Joe Biden lifted the sanctions soon after taking office in 2021.
ICC Prosecutor Khan later effectively dropped the US from the Afghan investigation and focused on the Taliban instead.
Biden strongly condemned the “outrageous” warrant against Netanyahu in November.
-With reporting from © AFP 2025 and Diarmuid Pepper
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