"Without commenting on ongoing cases, he called on European authorities to activate a mechanism that could limit the impact of US restrictions."
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ICC member states should take steps to ensure the sanctioned judges and prosecutors do not suffer as a result of U.S. sanctions. The goal should be to ensure that they feel no repercussions that might bias them one way or the other in future cases and thus maintain impartiality. If this is not done, it could create an apparent feedback loop, if only in the public's imagination. i.e. After some future ICC ruling goes against them (or Israel/Russia), the U.S. may claim that ICC judges and prosecutors are prejudiced against them and are seeking revenge. Protecting ICC personnel now could blunt such claims. Sadly, I fear that the U.S. may have need of defence from ICC rulings relatively soon.
> Sadly, I fear that the U.S. may have need of such a defence relatively soon.
When it really comes down to it, usa is a super power. Might makes right in international politics. The ICC has had quite a lot of successes when it comes to small and even medium sized countries, but at some point pragmatism has to win out. Nobody is going to war with the USA on behalf of the ICC. I highly doubt the ICC is going to push any issue with america unless the evidence against them is extreme. Its simply not powerful enough.
Europe isn't a superpower but it's a giant entity with 450 million people and 15% of the world's gdp. It has the means to oppose the US and retaliate against its sanctions, if it doesn't it's because of the cowardice of its politicians and the weakness of its institutions.
But the whole point of Nuremberg was to prevent this, the whole idea of international law was meant to prevent this. The judges of Nuremberg warned us about this outcome.
In a world where human rights are not respected, why would we think that the Jewish people are anything but disadvantaged? Have we forgotten the important parts of history, in our urgency to prevent it repeating?
If might makes right, you've already accepted that the world belongs to China.
Nobody needs to go to war with America on behalf of the ICC. We merely need member nations to declare they won't enforce any American sanctions against ICC judges or other personnel. The US might cry and stamp their feet, maybe even threaten to invade France, but this is all impotent rage if the EU decides to wake up and call America's stupid bluffs.
One of the things that made America a superpower is "soft power". Continuing to piss off their allies will eventually blow back if the US ever needs something from the UN.
Or worse they may need that French aircraft carrier if war breaks out with China.
Im sorry the latter part of the 20th century was all about trying to avoid the whole might makes right mindset and in international politics it still should be. Wasn’t the whole justification for the west supporting Ukraine that might shouldn’t make right? The fact that people have just swallowed the might make right narrative just shows what kind of a dire situation we are in when it comes to international politics and how far standards have fallen since 2001.
Where ICC could win against someone in the US is if the opposition comes to power in the US and does nothing to protect that person. "Oh gosh, bounty hunters grabbed them and smuggled them out of the country? What a shame."
> When it really comes down to it, usa is a super power.
For now. Once upon a time Russia was one too. These things are not set in stone and the way the United States is behaving it is not entirely out of the realm of the possible that they will stop being one.
And that's assuming they will survive as a nation.
Yes but the thing about power is the more you use it the more the other party learns to live without it. US has such a giant leverage over Europe because Europe believed US would never actually use its power against it. Imagine US sanctioning Chinese officials - they would shrug at best because China has its own everything because they always knew US would bully them.
The consequence is that Europe will slowly move its financial and IT systems away from US solutions. It's a very, very slow process because it was believed for almost a century that US wouldn't actually bully Europe. But for example, there will be more pressure to roll out Wero and have the systems completely European. Before Trump, there was decent chance the whole thing would be just Visa/MasterCard with extra steps. Now it's clear that EU needs its own independent payment system.
They don’t have to go to war. The ICC can just try these people in absentia and then once they’re found guilty put bounties out on them like Osama Bin Laden.
>When it really comes down to it, usa is a super power.
It was a superpower, until Trump got back in office. He's been taking an axe to US soft power, and our institutions in general. We're on the edge of losing Global reserve currency status. That's what's driving the re-monetization of Silver and Gold.
> ICC member states should take steps to ensure the sanctioned judges and prosecutors do not suffer as a result of U.S. sanctions
This would be lovely. It’s not going to happen, and it would be stupid for Europe to pursue alone.
The ICC was born out of the optimism of the 1990s. When China was accepted into the WTO because trade was equated with democracy. When the world powers at least pretended to heed an international rules-based order.
That order is dead. The EU is—nobly—trying to resurrect it. But the great powers, together with most regional powers, have explicitly rejected it in favor of spheres-of-influence realpolitik.
Upholding the Rome Statute would mean picking simultaneous fights with America and Russia, and probably Israel, Iran, India and China, too. It’s simply not a tenable situation in a world where the rules are being re-written in multiple theatres.
The US is not a signatory of the Rome statute. The ICC has no jurisdiction over the US, and any scenario where it claims it does would be an abuse of power.
2. The ICC recognizes the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to be Palestinian territories
3. The ICC Article 12(2)(a): “The Court may exercise its jurisdiction if the crime in question is committed on the territory of a State Party to this Statute.”
4. Therefore, ICC argues it does have jurisdiction
So, according to the ICC, you don't need to be apart of the Rome Statute for the ICC to have jurisdiction
at least thats the argument for ICC's jurisdiction over Israeli nationals. IDK if the ICC ever tried that with the USA
The only way we would ever answer to the ICC is if anyone could force us, by military threat. That's the only way people are put in front of that court.
Correction: it was created to advance own geopolitical goals and harrass unfriendly regimes using human rights abuse as an excuse. So in that sense nothing has fundamentally changed.
Which geopolitical goals was it created for? Certainly not the ones it's being used for right now.
This sort of fallacy, of widening a category such that the initial meaning is lost, and then advancing an argument on that false category, is something I'm seeing a lot more these days in political topics. But I'm not sure I have a name for the fallacy.
It's like people that argue that the US civil wars was "actually" about states' rights and economic differences rather than slavery. It wasn't a war about the concepts of states rights in general, it was about the right of states to do one thing: legalize slavery. It wasn't about the idea of economic differences in general, it was about one specific economic difference: chattel slavery and whether those slaves get paid and have economic freedom.
Not only judges in the ICC, the USA also used sanctions against a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice that is responsible for Bolsonaro's attempted coup case.
It's even more egregious it used the Magnitsky Act for that...
The whole banned via banking thing is scary. A local business in my area was flagged as some sort of illicit operation. There was almost no way to know it even happened outside being unable to take payment ... that was it.
No notice, no reason why, no recourse for them. They had google for their life for weeks talking to people online who it happened to and make dozens upon dozens of phone calls and explain the whole saga every time. Tons of false leads and promises for folks to call them back who never did.
They eventually found that it was some old bank they were in good standing with who after weeks of not responding, still couldn't explain why, but they said they apparently flagged them. It was undone after about 12 weeks and ultimately only because someone at this random bank took the initiative to lift the flag, but they didn't have to.
The process is completely opaque and you effectively have no rights to know or resolve anything.
> "On top of that, all payment systems are American: American Express, Visa, Mastercard. Overnight, you find yourself without a bank card, and these companies have an almost complete monopoly, at least in Europe."
On one hand, this shows how important it is for paper cash to have first-class citizen status when it comes to legal tender.
On the other hand, how does the largest single currency zone in the world not have its own debit card settlement system? The Germany-only Girocard appears to have been mostly phased out, and doesn't work outside Germany unless it's co-branded with MC/Visa. Same with France's Card Bancaire. Besides that, 39% of online purchases in Germany are made through PayPal or MC/Visa.
There’s a digital euro launching next year AFAIK which is designed to replace Mastercard and Visa. It’s been in the works for ages and is coming online at a pretty critical time it seems.
It comes with a full digital wallet infrastructure part of it too. So some of the fundamental tech scene is definitely changing in Europe.
> Besides that, 39% of online purchases in Germany are made through PayPal or MC/Visa.
This is currently being solved with Wero, which is intended to be an EU-wide online payment platform which can replace PayPal/MC/Visa, and a bunch of national payment systems.
HN moderation will protect outlandish hyperbolic comments like this, won't it?
If it needed to be said, Francesca Albanese is not conducting warfare. She's doing her job as a UN Special Reporter on Israel's occupation of Palestine. You are shooting the messenger.
I vouched for your comment because I don't believe it breaks any rules. If others disagree with you, they should reply. If they believe it's low quality, they should downvote. Flagging should be reserved for posts that actually break the rules.
She is wonderful and her work on investigating the complicity of countries in the Gaza genocide and Palestinian rights / Israeli agression is incredibly thorough and extremely important. More power to her!
The US is now literally sanctioning UN experts and ICC people if they push too hard on accountability for alleged Israeli war crimes, e.g. Francesca Albanese over her Gaza reports and support for ICC cases. In Germany (and elsewhere) it often doesn’t need formal sanctions: people get disinvited, smeared, or quietly pushed out of jobs if they’re too vocal on Palestine – think Ai Weiwei, Greta Thunberg, Masha Gessen, Ilan Pappé, Ghassan Hage and others running into cancellations, funding cuts, and public delegitimisation instead of explicit legal punishment.
Wow, unbelievable, downvote everything that states the obvious. This platform practically silences any criticism of Israel. Just like any other platform.
Using a human-rights sanctions framework against judges of a court literally created to prosecute human-rights violations is the snake eating its own tail. Sanctions used to be targeted at people trying to blow up the rule of law, now they are being used at people trying to apply it in ways that are politically inconvenient to a superpower and its allies.
This is why so many non-Western states call "rules-based order" a branding exercise: the same legal tool that hits warlords and cartel bosses is repurposed, with no structural checks, against judges whose decisions you dislike. And once you normalize that, you've handed every other great power a precedent: "our courts, our sanctions list, our enemies." The short-term message is "don't touch our friends"; the long-term message is "international law is just foreign policy with better stationery."
So many commenters here assume US global hegemony that, in reality, expired after the 1980s. Without its allies in Europe and Asia, the US can't act effectively.
It seems odd to me that the US supposedly isn't a major power, yet still finances both NATO and the UN primarily and if it lowers it's support it's "leading the destruction of those things".
Likewise if it backs off it's foreign support, hundreds of millions will die.
Are we singularly carrying the worlds on our backs - which sounds hegemonic - are is the US free to stop spending our money on everyone elses problems?
Perhaps the UK or Germany can fund everything for a few decades and be the next major world power for a bit.
The premise is off. These aren’t "everyone else’s problems", NATO, the UN, trade stability, and foreign aid exist because they serve US interests too: security, markets, alliances, and predictability. The US isn’t benevolently carrying the world; it’s investing in systems that reduce the cost of conflict and instability later.
The question isn’t whether the US is allowed to stop spending, but what it wants the world to look like if it does.
It's just the case that some people at the top don't seem to understand that.
The US accounts for a share of the UN budget roughly equal to the US share of global GDP. The US accounts for a fairly small fraction of the NATO budget. Very little of the US defense budget is spent via NATO. The US being "ripped off" has no basis in fact. Letting Russia impale itself on Ukraine is a pretty good bargain compared to meeting our NATO obligations should Russia invade Europe. We've been getting a good deal, which makes throwing that away pretty insane.
This "It seems odd to me that the US supposedly isn't a major power, yet still finances..." does not mean what you seem to think it means. Soft power and alliances are vastly cheaper than hard power. We are in the find out phase of having lost soft power.
despite how common this opinion is, it fails to recognize that the US itself wanted to structure things that way. this was a politically viable way to continue to funnel huge amounts of money into weapons development and research. its not unlikely that European dependence on the US was a bonus.
were the host countries in Europe pushing for US base deployments or was it really the US and its insane desire to land explosives anywhere in the world in 30 minutes or less and sustain two simulateous land conflicts.
none of this is that simple. were the Europeans happy to take the security and invest more in their civil societies? absolutely, but they eroded their own sovereignty by doing so and the US was more than happy to act like the big brother in control of the whole situation.
the US wanted worldwide military dominance and the dependence of its allies. it really quite weird to say its all their fault.
Yet America and Europe's foreign policies are largely dictated by rich people like the Adelsons who are attached to a foreign land. By accepting that policy and the mere existence of AIPAC, we have effectively voted for it
A 27-country bloc will struggle to accelerate on anything when one veto is all it takes to hit the brakes. Only 12 nations needed to agree when when the EU voted to institute a common currency in 1992.
A French university doesn't need to consult Hungary when reducing their dependency on US tech. Finland doesn't need to consult Czechia when deciding to invest more into domestic defense industry. And so on. The huge majority of dependencies can be eliminated without needing such consensus. It's a gradual process anyway. China didn't wane themselves off the US overnight. They still haven't entirely. See NVIDIA/ASML. Step by step, bit by bit.
The more wild US gets with its sanction powers the more it draws other countries to move usa away from the center of the financial system.
Nobody cares when usa was sanctioning random Iranians or Russians comitting human rights abuses, but the ICC is relatively popular in europe and the optics of this makes america look like gangsters. Obviously nothing is going to happen in the short term, but i wonder how it will errode american soft power in the long term if they keep this sort of thing up.
It is understandable that you would have this impression, given that the US leader has total legal immunity, directly controls the judiciary, Congress, tariffs and formerly independent financial agencies, openly threatens journalists and news media companies, appoints untalented lackies and openly enriches himself and his family and associates, openly uses federal legal entities to pursue opponents, deploys the military within the country against its own citizens, and has made federal arrest without warrant a common daily event.
It you live in a country where your government does not exhibit such characteristics, it's easy to mistake the above as an indication of something suspiciously unlike democracy.
From TFA: "In concrete terms, the rule of law is equality for all individuals, globally, before justice."
The rule of law has now become — for those who enjoy American expressions — a type of fan fiction.
They literally are gangsters; look at what they're doing in Venezuela, literally stealing and selling oil tankers, extrajudicial killings and all the rest of it.
Only 33% of the population opposed it the second time (when it was already clear what their Dear Leader is like), so it's very difficult to escape the conclusion that they're gangsters and fine with that. Even here on HN they're blithely saying "might makes right"...
"Might makes right" is an observation, not a profession of moral philosophy... In other words, the mighty will generally get their way, no matter how wrong that way is.
As far as the tankers go, they're not transporting Toys for Tots, they're transporting Oil for Oligarchs, so I'm not sure how much sympathy I'm going to be able to muster on that one, even though the lawlessness leaves a bitter taste.
I think Trump has successfully destroyed all of that and replaced it with (rhetoric about) threats of hard power.
The Trump administration is the equivalent of a lazy/absent parent. The kids have no respect for them whatsoever, but they're sick with them for time being and aware that belt hurts when it's deployed.
What's the process for initiation into the "west" these days? Colonizing someone else's territory and sweeping it under the rug as brazenly as possible? It certainly isn't freedom of expression or respect for the rule of law.
We've banned this account for using HN exclusively for political/ideological/nationalistic battle, as well as for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop.
I think the important thing here is that governments shouldn't have the right to make life hard for ordinary people with punishments like taking away access to banks and finance system etc.
As for the US slapping European politicians etc, it's high time the people on high horses in Europe feel the shit they push on ordinary people.
There should be no way the government can 'debank' someone in the first place. Monetary relations with other people have always been untouched by the state until very recently, even for revolutionaries. A private transaction is not anyone's business apart from the counterparties.
Assuming that someone should not be allowed to freely earn, spend, invest and participate in the economy without a proved felony is a dystopian concept.
Either have a proper fair public trial and put criminals in prison for serious violations or don't discriminate against anyone's stuff at all if you don't have any proofs. Otherwise it's massively used to give advantages to citizens of several nations to do business and earn while discriminating against others because of 'high risks' without any public court hearing, based on nationality, citizenship or organizational relations.
Unfortunately this seems to be exactly the slope the West is going down after dismissing all the crazy talk of conspiracy theorists who warned of this very thing.
I haven’t seen anything about it here, but another example that is worse because it’s an attack on a private person, is the EU recently sanctioning the former Swiss intelligence officer Jacques Baud, living in Belgium which he now cannot leave, for seemingly, essentially reminding the people of Europe and EU politicians’ of the things they said.
The US did this to a slate of Hong Kong administrators in 2020 for implementing China's repressive national security law. It didn't seem to act as a deterrent, as the US did it again to a different group of officials earlier this year.
This is so sad. The rule of law does not apply to the world’s hegemon or its closest allies.
Nearly four decades ago, the then senator Joe Biden told Congress that Israel was “the best $3bn investment we make”, claiming that “were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region”. The US regards Israel as an indispensable strategic asset, which is why it is the biggest ever recipient of US foreign aid, including military assistance. Washington will keep supplying the weapons that enable Israeli war crimes – and then threaten anyone who tries to hold the perpetrators to account.
Guillou and his colleagues issued their warrants after a lengthy, cautious legal process. The case against the Israeli politicians focused on the use of starvation, which Israeli leaders routinely confessed to.
I am intrigued by the fact the US acts despite no US citizen having an arrest warrant put out for them.
Israel can't do sanctions for Israelis?
I mean, the realpolitik of these sanctions by the US is in hope that the USs involvement in Gaza doesn't get arrest warrants for their own officials / Presidents. Or for war crimes and human rights violations against Venezuelan boats.
Does make Israel look either weak or like a small person puppeteering a much bigger person though.
Additionally, tangentially, I find it interesting the reluctance the US has had, for three entirety of Trump's term so far, in extending sanctions on Russia for it's continued bombardment of Ukraine.
Speaks volumes about the (confusing, although maybe just rapid direction/ally change) motivations of the current administration.
In international institutions Israel is weak. It's vastly outnumbered by Muslim countries, which is why traditionally Israel has received more criticism in the UN compared to any other country.
>It's vastly outnumbered by Muslim countries, which is why traditionally Israel has received more criticism in the UN
How is this anything but DARVO? Israel receives criticism in the UN for reasons that are easily verified and quite understandable - namely its deliriously racist, brutally violent, textbook illegal, and long-lived occupation of Palestine and attempts to annex its territory.
Blaming Muslim countries writ large for the UN complaining about Israel's blatant and continuous violation of the UN Charter and various other international laws is shockingly racist.
The problem is many people — not here on HN but in general — were happy or at least unperturbed when this happened to right wing figures like Donald Trump, the trucker protestors in Canada and the 1/6 capitol riot people in the US.
It was incredibly obvious this would be inflicted in the other direction to anyone who followed what happened to Wikileaks supporters or people around Ed Snowden.
To everyone saying this is about US hegemony, note not only Canada but also UK (see Nigel Farage) has inflicted this on their own citizens - so they certainly helped lay the groundwork for what amount to extremely petty sanctions (and they too have participated in sanctions efforts).
Your media consumption may be particularly biased if you didn't hear of this! I recommend following outlets from "both sides" even if you find the "other side" offensive. I hate to shill for Ground News, but it's great for this.
Niether Trump nor the "truckers" in Canada were debanked. Freezing your funds in a given country can happen for a variety of reasons and is not remotely the same as debanking someone.
They were temporarily debanked under highly debatable circumstances. Regardless of your political leaning, if you care about basic human freedoms, the level of power the government has over the access individuals have to their finances (in addition to the degree to which every social institution is deeply entangled with that financial system) should be a cause for concern.
The Truckers were on Canadian soil and subject to Canadian law, there was no reason to freeze their accounts like this. They should have been pursued in criminal courts, during which their access to legal counsel should not have been obstructed.
This tactic broadcasts Trump's guilt, and the guilt of others by association. It's hard to imagine how this will play out. It's very worrisome that the USA is collapsing into a fascist state. I feel bad for young people who inherit the consequences of these terrible decisions.
There’s a fundamental flaw in the concept of “international justice”.
On a nation level the power of a court to prosecute individuals is supported by a policing force that is capable of resorting to violence on a local level that is acceptable for the greater peace.
On an international level, enforcing justice would ultimately require going to war, with mass casualties and likely numerous incidents of potential breaches of the law itself.
In the example of Israel vs Hamas, the ICC warrant included the leaders of Hamas - but the ICC had zero chance of actually arresting them, they were killed by Israel though. So half of the defendants carried out the justice sought by the ICC on the other half.
There's no such flaw in most cases brought to the ICC
The ICC is an international court but it administers trials (mostly) local to the members' jurisdiction so this point is moot. A warrant from the ICC doesn't ask the member states to go to war and hunt the target, it asks them to arrest them if the target is within their jurisdiction
The fact that the ICC warrant was unlikely to lead to Hamas' leaders arrest in the short term is not particularly meaningful
The "mostly" qualifier is because IIRC there are some provisions for truly extraterritorial prosecutions in the Rome treaty but I don't know that they've ever been actually used
The national policing forces don't report to the courts. Instead, there are promises between the two. The argument that international courts cannot work because they don't have their own enforcement is weak. But you are right it would be equivalent to war, or "special military operations" such as Bin Ladin, if a ruling party is convicted.
If the country itself has a justice system that can prosecute the individual, the ICC has no jurisdiction.
In the case of Israel the ICC used a loophole to work around this, since the Israeli courts are actually able to prosecute Netanyahu (and are currently doing so on other matters).
I think this comment shows how far removed is the modern person living in a sheltered, matcha-sipping western environment from actual human historical reality. Do you seriously suggest that during an active war one side would bring the other to trial rather than just destroy them?
Generally when you say these kinds of things, it's polite to not let your audience guess at what and who you mean. Could you please give us some links?
The only lesson they will learn is that they need to control sanctions themselves and likely to use them more. Nothing good about this unless you want to see a weaker US and lilely a more federal EU.
Unpopular opinion, but the US and a handful of other countries do not recognize the ICC and in their eyes it does not exist; hence the US has no obligation to support them in any way.
The ICC was warned before picking on Israel, but it did not listen. Now they’re paying the consequences.
The long term consequence is that the US is proving that the rest of the world how dangerous it is to rely on US financial institutions. I very much doubt destroying the trustworthiness of its financial institutions in order to protect war criominals is beneficial for the US in the long run.
After WW2, the US did a lot of bad things but it did not change its status in the world. Nothing will change now or in the foreseeable future. And the “problem” is pretty simple: there is no one able to take its place.
While the events on Oct 7th were horrific and undoubtedly deserved eliminating Hamas, Israel has collectively punished the civilian population of Gaza in the extreme (as they have been doing for years)
Let’s grant the worse case scenario argument against Israel’s actions. Their point still stands: neither Israel nor the USA recognize the authority of the ICC; they have not signed on to the treaty to be governed by it, and hence the ICC does not have the authority to look into either of ther actions.
I don’t think the ICC was plotting to undermine US or Israel sovereignty. The dispute is about jurisdiction. The ICC has a pretty expansive theory that says it can go after nationals of non-member states if the alleged conduct happened on the territory of a member state. That theory has been around for years and mostly lived in briefs and conferences. What changed in 2025 is that the ICC started acting on it and advancing real cases that implicated non-members. At that point it stopped being academic and started looking like a real-world precedent with consequences for allies and potentially US personnel. That’s the slippery slope. The administration had already tried protests and non-recognition and concluded it was not changing behavior. The August sanctions were framed as a last-resort escalation to draw a hard line against what they saw as ongoing overreach, not as a response to some new hostile intent.
Why does it have jurisdiction? Israel has not ratified the Rome Treaty, and have stated they will not do so. Without that the ICC does not have legal jurisdiction over their actions.
I wonder if (when?) elites are going to use and support Bitcoin. Oppressive governments will force citizens - even such powerful as judges - to search for escapes.
The banking cartel will outlaw any real alternative. Bitcoin, Brics crypto system, whatever. And they will confiscate gold like back in the 30s. If they don't their magic money faucet will end. And they started wars for much smaller threats to their dominance.
First, a French judge has no power in the US. Second, Bitcoin is utter shit: it is not sustainable and mainly used to prop up criminals. Third, if money can be hidden and taxation becomes very difficult or impossible, society will collapse, and the "elite" loses its position. Bitcoin is not an alternative.
Cryptocurrencies work fine. If the debanked were to use them, they would find 90% of their restrictions lifted immediately and without permission from anyone.
No, society will not collapse; it will stabilize. There are many forms of taxation, e.g. property, tarrifs, etc. that are unaffected.
Those who call Bitcoin utter shit always have an agenda and insecurities rooted in a feared loss of status.
The problem there is that the EU has started copying the USA, and has just recently sanctioned multiple journalists for telling stories that don't align with their narrative on Russia/Ukraine.
FWIW it's kind of refreshing to see a judicial official on the receiving end of this treatment. I know he's not one of the judges who permitted the debanking of protesters in Canada, but 1:1 of like-kind is probably all we can ask for.
Those who so flippantly censor and ostracise dissidents deserve a periodic taste of their own concoctions.
No, you missed the point. They have been indicated to "as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts". Physical destruction can occur without being a war crime and those war crimes can occur without any destruction. So it didn't add any useful information infact it was actively misleading because some people might think they were indicated for destruction.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The US is acting to impose sanctions on individuals with no direct ties to it by using its legal authority over American entities. The reason the US wants to do this is because the ICC is seeking to impose its legal authority over individuals whose state has not joined the ICC with novel legal theories and using its legal authority over ICC states. If the ICC had remained in areas where its legal authority is clear and not disputed, its judges and prosecutors wouldn't be facing this issue.
Can you be more specific? Which individuals and why (not)?
Note that eg if you're from (picking two random countries) Nepal and commit a crime in Italy, then Italy still has jurisdiction. Italian police can arrest you. [1]
Also, there's certain crimes that any country is allowed to arrest you for, for instance piracy on the high seas.
I'm talking about the sanctioned individuals on the ICC, judges and the prosecutor. The issue is not a matter of certain individuals going to a different country and allegedly committing a crime there. No one is talking about sea piracy.
The only way the theory of international law holds any water is if countries are held to it regardless of the treaties they've signed. Any country that hasn't signed with the ICC is clearly a country run by criminals.
https://archive.is/DFHM6
"Without commenting on ongoing cases, he called on European authorities to activate a mechanism that could limit the impact of US restrictions."
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ICC member states should take steps to ensure the sanctioned judges and prosecutors do not suffer as a result of U.S. sanctions. The goal should be to ensure that they feel no repercussions that might bias them one way or the other in future cases and thus maintain impartiality. If this is not done, it could create an apparent feedback loop, if only in the public's imagination. i.e. After some future ICC ruling goes against them (or Israel/Russia), the U.S. may claim that ICC judges and prosecutors are prejudiced against them and are seeking revenge. Protecting ICC personnel now could blunt such claims. Sadly, I fear that the U.S. may have need of defence from ICC rulings relatively soon.
> Sadly, I fear that the U.S. may have need of such a defence relatively soon.
When it really comes down to it, usa is a super power. Might makes right in international politics. The ICC has had quite a lot of successes when it comes to small and even medium sized countries, but at some point pragmatism has to win out. Nobody is going to war with the USA on behalf of the ICC. I highly doubt the ICC is going to push any issue with america unless the evidence against them is extreme. Its simply not powerful enough.
Europe isn't a superpower but it's a giant entity with 450 million people and 15% of the world's gdp. It has the means to oppose the US and retaliate against its sanctions, if it doesn't it's because of the cowardice of its politicians and the weakness of its institutions.
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>Might makes right in international politics.
But the whole point of Nuremberg was to prevent this, the whole idea of international law was meant to prevent this. The judges of Nuremberg warned us about this outcome.
In a world where human rights are not respected, why would we think that the Jewish people are anything but disadvantaged? Have we forgotten the important parts of history, in our urgency to prevent it repeating?
If might makes right, you've already accepted that the world belongs to China.
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Nobody needs to go to war with America on behalf of the ICC. We merely need member nations to declare they won't enforce any American sanctions against ICC judges or other personnel. The US might cry and stamp their feet, maybe even threaten to invade France, but this is all impotent rage if the EU decides to wake up and call America's stupid bluffs.
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Meet the "Hague Invasion Act":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
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One of the things that made America a superpower is "soft power". Continuing to piss off their allies will eventually blow back if the US ever needs something from the UN.
Or worse they may need that French aircraft carrier if war breaks out with China.
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The Roman Empire was a superpower too, until it made too many stupid mistakes not dissimilar to modern ones.
Im sorry the latter part of the 20th century was all about trying to avoid the whole might makes right mindset and in international politics it still should be. Wasn’t the whole justification for the west supporting Ukraine that might shouldn’t make right? The fact that people have just swallowed the might make right narrative just shows what kind of a dire situation we are in when it comes to international politics and how far standards have fallen since 2001.
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Where ICC could win against someone in the US is if the opposition comes to power in the US and does nothing to protect that person. "Oh gosh, bounty hunters grabbed them and smuggled them out of the country? What a shame."
> When it really comes down to it, usa is a super power.
For now. Once upon a time Russia was one too. These things are not set in stone and the way the United States is behaving it is not entirely out of the realm of the possible that they will stop being one.
And that's assuming they will survive as a nation.
Yes but the thing about power is the more you use it the more the other party learns to live without it. US has such a giant leverage over Europe because Europe believed US would never actually use its power against it. Imagine US sanctioning Chinese officials - they would shrug at best because China has its own everything because they always knew US would bully them.
The consequence is that Europe will slowly move its financial and IT systems away from US solutions. It's a very, very slow process because it was believed for almost a century that US wouldn't actually bully Europe. But for example, there will be more pressure to roll out Wero and have the systems completely European. Before Trump, there was decent chance the whole thing would be just Visa/MasterCard with extra steps. Now it's clear that EU needs its own independent payment system.
USAs superpower is their inability to see their own hypocrisy.
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They don’t have to go to war. The ICC can just try these people in absentia and then once they’re found guilty put bounties out on them like Osama Bin Laden.
>When it really comes down to it, usa is a super power.
It was a superpower, until Trump got back in office. He's been taking an axe to US soft power, and our institutions in general. We're on the edge of losing Global reserve currency status. That's what's driving the re-monetization of Silver and Gold.
Might is right is the norm everywhere at every level not only international politics. The corrolary is that democracy and human rights are a joke.
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> ICC member states should take steps to ensure the sanctioned judges and prosecutors do not suffer as a result of U.S. sanctions
This would be lovely. It’s not going to happen, and it would be stupid for Europe to pursue alone.
The ICC was born out of the optimism of the 1990s. When China was accepted into the WTO because trade was equated with democracy. When the world powers at least pretended to heed an international rules-based order.
That order is dead. The EU is—nobly—trying to resurrect it. But the great powers, together with most regional powers, have explicitly rejected it in favor of spheres-of-influence realpolitik.
Upholding the Rome Statute would mean picking simultaneous fights with America and Russia, and probably Israel, Iran, India and China, too. It’s simply not a tenable situation in a world where the rules are being re-written in multiple theatres.
United Gangsters of America it seems ... since the people have no say, just a moron with too much luck, too much power, not enough consequences.
They'll come? and the fact that's a question shows American Justice has been absent for quite some time.
The US is not a signatory of the Rome statute. The ICC has no jurisdiction over the US, and any scenario where it claims it does would be an abuse of power.
I'm not saying I agree with the following.
From what I've read from the ICC:
1. Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute.
2. The ICC recognizes the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to be Palestinian territories
3. The ICC Article 12(2)(a): “The Court may exercise its jurisdiction if the crime in question is committed on the territory of a State Party to this Statute.”
4. Therefore, ICC argues it does have jurisdiction
So, according to the ICC, you don't need to be apart of the Rome Statute for the ICC to have jurisdiction
at least thats the argument for ICC's jurisdiction over Israeli nationals. IDK if the ICC ever tried that with the USA
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The same goes for israel, which provides some helpful context. "Us sanctions ICC for abusing their power"
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>Sadly, I fear that the U.S. may have need of defence from ICC rulings relatively soon.
Nothing sad about a well-deserved reckoning.
The only way we would ever answer to the ICC is if anyone could force us, by military threat. That's the only way people are put in front of that court.
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"What is the purpose of the American sanctions mechanism?
Initially, it was created to address human rights violations[...]"
Yet here we are: it's being used to harass judges who address human rights violations.
Correction: it was created to advance own geopolitical goals and harrass unfriendly regimes using human rights abuse as an excuse. So in that sense nothing has fundamentally changed.
Which geopolitical goals was it created for? Certainly not the ones it's being used for right now.
This sort of fallacy, of widening a category such that the initial meaning is lost, and then advancing an argument on that false category, is something I'm seeing a lot more these days in political topics. But I'm not sure I have a name for the fallacy.
It's like people that argue that the US civil wars was "actually" about states' rights and economic differences rather than slavery. It wasn't a war about the concepts of states rights in general, it was about the right of states to do one thing: legalize slavery. It wasn't about the idea of economic differences in general, it was about one specific economic difference: chattel slavery and whether those slaves get paid and have economic freedom.
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"Always has been" ;)
Not only judges in the ICC, the USA also used sanctions against a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice that is responsible for Bolsonaro's attempted coup case.
It's even more egregious it used the Magnitsky Act for that...
The whole banned via banking thing is scary. A local business in my area was flagged as some sort of illicit operation. There was almost no way to know it even happened outside being unable to take payment ... that was it.
No notice, no reason why, no recourse for them. They had google for their life for weeks talking to people online who it happened to and make dozens upon dozens of phone calls and explain the whole saga every time. Tons of false leads and promises for folks to call them back who never did.
They eventually found that it was some old bank they were in good standing with who after weeks of not responding, still couldn't explain why, but they said they apparently flagged them. It was undone after about 12 weeks and ultimately only because someone at this random bank took the initiative to lift the flag, but they didn't have to.
The process is completely opaque and you effectively have no rights to know or resolve anything.
> "On top of that, all payment systems are American: American Express, Visa, Mastercard. Overnight, you find yourself without a bank card, and these companies have an almost complete monopoly, at least in Europe."
On one hand, this shows how important it is for paper cash to have first-class citizen status when it comes to legal tender.
On the other hand, how does the largest single currency zone in the world not have its own debit card settlement system? The Germany-only Girocard appears to have been mostly phased out, and doesn't work outside Germany unless it's co-branded with MC/Visa. Same with France's Card Bancaire. Besides that, 39% of online purchases in Germany are made through PayPal or MC/Visa.
[0] https://stripe.com/en-ca/resources/more/payment-methods-germ...
There’s a digital euro launching next year AFAIK which is designed to replace Mastercard and Visa. It’s been in the works for ages and is coming online at a pretty critical time it seems.
It comes with a full digital wallet infrastructure part of it too. So some of the fundamental tech scene is definitely changing in Europe.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...
GNU Taler is not coming? :-( Whatever happened to NGI Taler program anyway?
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> Besides that, 39% of online purchases in Germany are made through PayPal or MC/Visa.
This is currently being solved with Wero, which is intended to be an EU-wide online payment platform which can replace PayPal/MC/Visa, and a bunch of national payment systems.
Antagonizing it's allies is having exactly the effect on US soft power as expected.
Wero is just a layer on top of the already working SEPA.
(And a layer that is potentially worse than Visa / MasterCard, as long as it's only implemented on Google / Apple smartphones.)
The U.S. has also sanctioned Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories
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>Francesca Albanese is conducting warfare
HN moderation will protect outlandish hyperbolic comments like this, won't it?
If it needed to be said, Francesca Albanese is not conducting warfare. She's doing her job as a UN Special Reporter on Israel's occupation of Palestine. You are shooting the messenger.
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You're gonna look back on comments like this in about five years and realise that you're an idiot
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I vouched for your comment because I don't believe it breaks any rules. If others disagree with you, they should reply. If they believe it's low quality, they should downvote. Flagging should be reserved for posts that actually break the rules.
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Who addresses Israeli terrorism?
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She is wonderful and her work on investigating the complicity of countries in the Gaza genocide and Palestinian rights / Israeli agression is incredibly thorough and extremely important. More power to her!
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The US is now literally sanctioning UN experts and ICC people if they push too hard on accountability for alleged Israeli war crimes, e.g. Francesca Albanese over her Gaza reports and support for ICC cases. In Germany (and elsewhere) it often doesn’t need formal sanctions: people get disinvited, smeared, or quietly pushed out of jobs if they’re too vocal on Palestine – think Ai Weiwei, Greta Thunberg, Masha Gessen, Ilan Pappé, Ghassan Hage and others running into cancellations, funding cuts, and public delegitimisation instead of explicit legal punishment.
Wow, unbelievable, downvote everything that states the obvious. This platform practically silences any criticism of Israel. Just like any other platform.
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Using a human-rights sanctions framework against judges of a court literally created to prosecute human-rights violations is the snake eating its own tail. Sanctions used to be targeted at people trying to blow up the rule of law, now they are being used at people trying to apply it in ways that are politically inconvenient to a superpower and its allies.
This is why so many non-Western states call "rules-based order" a branding exercise: the same legal tool that hits warlords and cartel bosses is repurposed, with no structural checks, against judges whose decisions you dislike. And once you normalize that, you've handed every other great power a precedent: "our courts, our sanctions list, our enemies." The short-term message is "don't touch our friends"; the long-term message is "international law is just foreign policy with better stationery."
So many commenters here assume US global hegemony that, in reality, expired after the 1980s. Without its allies in Europe and Asia, the US can't act effectively.
> Without its allies in Europe and Asia, the US can't act effectively
They’re all vastly mutually beneficial systems of alliances. That said, America flipping out over the ICC is basically as old as the ICC.
And yet, they imposed FATCA and the whole world asked "how high"?
Isn't it similar to how many countries kept using Russian gaz after the invasion in Ukraine, they weren't ready to turn the switch off?
The US seems "winning" right now because its imposing measure that need time to be bypassed, but will be bypassed.
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It seems odd to me that the US supposedly isn't a major power, yet still finances both NATO and the UN primarily and if it lowers it's support it's "leading the destruction of those things".
Likewise if it backs off it's foreign support, hundreds of millions will die.
Are we singularly carrying the worlds on our backs - which sounds hegemonic - are is the US free to stop spending our money on everyone elses problems?
Perhaps the UK or Germany can fund everything for a few decades and be the next major world power for a bit.
The premise is off. These aren’t "everyone else’s problems", NATO, the UN, trade stability, and foreign aid exist because they serve US interests too: security, markets, alliances, and predictability. The US isn’t benevolently carrying the world; it’s investing in systems that reduce the cost of conflict and instability later.
The question isn’t whether the US is allowed to stop spending, but what it wants the world to look like if it does.
It's just the case that some people at the top don't seem to understand that.
The US accounts for a share of the UN budget roughly equal to the US share of global GDP. The US accounts for a fairly small fraction of the NATO budget. Very little of the US defense budget is spent via NATO. The US being "ripped off" has no basis in fact. Letting Russia impale itself on Ukraine is a pretty good bargain compared to meeting our NATO obligations should Russia invade Europe. We've been getting a good deal, which makes throwing that away pretty insane.
This "It seems odd to me that the US supposedly isn't a major power, yet still finances..." does not mean what you seem to think it means. Soft power and alliances are vastly cheaper than hard power. We are in the find out phase of having lost soft power.
despite how common this opinion is, it fails to recognize that the US itself wanted to structure things that way. this was a politically viable way to continue to funnel huge amounts of money into weapons development and research. its not unlikely that European dependence on the US was a bonus.
were the host countries in Europe pushing for US base deployments or was it really the US and its insane desire to land explosives anywhere in the world in 30 minutes or less and sustain two simulateous land conflicts.
none of this is that simple. were the Europeans happy to take the security and invest more in their civil societies? absolutely, but they eroded their own sovereignty by doing so and the US was more than happy to act like the big brother in control of the whole situation.
the US wanted worldwide military dominance and the dependence of its allies. it really quite weird to say its all their fault.
Trump is fixing the UN glitch: https://www.cfr.org/article/funding-united-nations-what-impa...
Whether NATO still exists as a defense organisation is a good question.
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Fantastic news. The more of this, the sooner Europe wakes up and starts accelerating sovereignty. Please keep it coming!
Sovereignty? Sounds like doing Israel's bidding is the opposite of sovereignty.
Last I checked I never voted for Netanyahu.
Yet America and Europe's foreign policies are largely dictated by rich people like the Adelsons who are attached to a foreign land. By accepting that policy and the mere existence of AIPAC, we have effectively voted for it
A 27-country bloc will struggle to accelerate on anything when one veto is all it takes to hit the brakes. Only 12 nations needed to agree when when the EU voted to institute a common currency in 1992.
A French university doesn't need to consult Hungary when reducing their dependency on US tech. Finland doesn't need to consult Czechia when deciding to invest more into domestic defense industry. And so on. The huge majority of dependencies can be eliminated without needing such consensus. It's a gradual process anyway. China didn't wane themselves off the US overnight. They still haven't entirely. See NVIDIA/ASML. Step by step, bit by bit.
Indeed, I think those sanctions did better than 10 years of talks for the digital euro
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The more wild US gets with its sanction powers the more it draws other countries to move usa away from the center of the financial system.
Nobody cares when usa was sanctioning random Iranians or Russians comitting human rights abuses, but the ICC is relatively popular in europe and the optics of this makes america look like gangsters. Obviously nothing is going to happen in the short term, but i wonder how it will errode american soft power in the long term if they keep this sort of thing up.
> this makes america look like gangsters
It is understandable that you would have this impression, given that the US leader has total legal immunity, directly controls the judiciary, Congress, tariffs and formerly independent financial agencies, openly threatens journalists and news media companies, appoints untalented lackies and openly enriches himself and his family and associates, openly uses federal legal entities to pursue opponents, deploys the military within the country against its own citizens, and has made federal arrest without warrant a common daily event.
It you live in a country where your government does not exhibit such characteristics, it's easy to mistake the above as an indication of something suspiciously unlike democracy.
From TFA: "In concrete terms, the rule of law is equality for all individuals, globally, before justice."
The rule of law has now become — for those who enjoy American expressions — a type of fan fiction.
They literally are gangsters; look at what they're doing in Venezuela, literally stealing and selling oil tankers, extrajudicial killings and all the rest of it.
Only 33% of the population opposed it the second time (when it was already clear what their Dear Leader is like), so it's very difficult to escape the conclusion that they're gangsters and fine with that. Even here on HN they're blithely saying "might makes right"...
"Might makes right" is an observation, not a profession of moral philosophy... In other words, the mighty will generally get their way, no matter how wrong that way is.
As far as the tankers go, they're not transporting Toys for Tots, they're transporting Oil for Oligarchs, so I'm not sure how much sympathy I'm going to be able to muster on that one, even though the lawlessness leaves a bitter taste.
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The US has any soft power left?
I think Trump has successfully destroyed all of that and replaced it with (rhetoric about) threats of hard power.
The Trump administration is the equivalent of a lazy/absent parent. The kids have no respect for them whatsoever, but they're sick with them for time being and aware that belt hurts when it's deployed.
It still has quite a bit. It took decades to build it up, and Trump has not yet managed to destroy all of it in one year, but maybe four years ...
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On surely unrelated news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403276
exactly right
The ICC was never meant to be used against the West.
What's the process for initiation into the "west" these days? Colonizing someone else's territory and sweeping it under the rug as brazenly as possible? It certainly isn't freedom of expression or respect for the rule of law.
How is Israel "the West"? If its just because of alliances then Saudi Arabia is also "the West"
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We've banned this account for using HN exclusively for political/ideological/nationalistic battle, as well as for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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I think the important thing here is that governments shouldn't have the right to make life hard for ordinary people with punishments like taking away access to banks and finance system etc.
As for the US slapping European politicians etc, it's high time the people on high horses in Europe feel the shit they push on ordinary people.
There should be no way the government can 'debank' someone in the first place. Monetary relations with other people have always been untouched by the state until very recently, even for revolutionaries. A private transaction is not anyone's business apart from the counterparties.
Assuming that someone should not be allowed to freely earn, spend, invest and participate in the economy without a proved felony is a dystopian concept.
Either have a proper fair public trial and put criminals in prison for serious violations or don't discriminate against anyone's stuff at all if you don't have any proofs. Otherwise it's massively used to give advantages to citizens of several nations to do business and earn while discriminating against others because of 'high risks' without any public court hearing, based on nationality, citizenship or organizational relations.
Unfortunately this seems to be exactly the slope the West is going down after dismissing all the crazy talk of conspiracy theorists who warned of this very thing.
I haven’t seen anything about it here, but another example that is worse because it’s an attack on a private person, is the EU recently sanctioning the former Swiss intelligence officer Jacques Baud, living in Belgium which he now cannot leave, for seemingly, essentially reminding the people of Europe and EU politicians’ of the things they said.
I’m sure there’s a nice pad in Moscow for Baud should he finally have the nerve to come clean about his paymasters.
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The US did this to a slate of Hong Kong administrators in 2020 for implementing China's repressive national security law. It didn't seem to act as a deterrent, as the US did it again to a different group of officials earlier this year.
https://hongkongfp.com/2025/04/01/us-sanctions-6-officials-i...
One of the sanctioned officials reportedly keeps "piles of cash" at her house.
https://news.bitcoin.com/unbanked-hong-kong-leader-carrie-la...
Related:
'It's surreal': How US sanctions lock ICC judges out of daily life
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46293048
This is so sad. The rule of law does not apply to the world’s hegemon or its closest allies.
Nearly four decades ago, the then senator Joe Biden told Congress that Israel was “the best $3bn investment we make”, claiming that “were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region”. The US regards Israel as an indispensable strategic asset, which is why it is the biggest ever recipient of US foreign aid, including military assistance. Washington will keep supplying the weapons that enable Israeli war crimes – and then threaten anyone who tries to hold the perpetrators to account.
Guillou and his colleagues issued their warrants after a lengthy, cautious legal process. The case against the Israeli politicians focused on the use of starvation, which Israeli leaders routinely confessed to.
This is a bit old
> The 125 member states of the Court will hold their annual Assembly in The Hague, Netherlands, in early December.
I wonder if they made any progress after that.
News from 2 months ago;
Discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45706056
Another reason for the world to move off the dollar system. And now even European countries/banking system will be more into de-dollarisation
The Israelis control the US government.
I am intrigued by the fact the US acts despite no US citizen having an arrest warrant put out for them.
Israel can't do sanctions for Israelis?
I mean, the realpolitik of these sanctions by the US is in hope that the USs involvement in Gaza doesn't get arrest warrants for their own officials / Presidents. Or for war crimes and human rights violations against Venezuelan boats.
Does make Israel look either weak or like a small person puppeteering a much bigger person though.
Additionally, tangentially, I find it interesting the reluctance the US has had, for three entirety of Trump's term so far, in extending sanctions on Russia for it's continued bombardment of Ukraine.
Speaks volumes about the (confusing, although maybe just rapid direction/ally change) motivations of the current administration.
The Hague Invasion Act covers Americans and allies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...
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In international institutions Israel is weak. It's vastly outnumbered by Muslim countries, which is why traditionally Israel has received more criticism in the UN compared to any other country.
It's receiving criticism in the UN because of the horrible crimes it's committing
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>It's vastly outnumbered by Muslim countries, which is why traditionally Israel has received more criticism in the UN
How is this anything but DARVO? Israel receives criticism in the UN for reasons that are easily verified and quite understandable - namely its deliriously racist, brutally violent, textbook illegal, and long-lived occupation of Palestine and attempts to annex its territory.
Blaming Muslim countries writ large for the UN complaining about Israel's blatant and continuous violation of the UN Charter and various other international laws is shockingly racist.
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The problem is many people — not here on HN but in general — were happy or at least unperturbed when this happened to right wing figures like Donald Trump, the trucker protestors in Canada and the 1/6 capitol riot people in the US.
It was incredibly obvious this would be inflicted in the other direction to anyone who followed what happened to Wikileaks supporters or people around Ed Snowden.
To everyone saying this is about US hegemony, note not only Canada but also UK (see Nigel Farage) has inflicted this on their own citizens - so they certainly helped lay the groundwork for what amount to extremely petty sanctions (and they too have participated in sanctions efforts).
Trump was never debanked. To my recollection, no protesters in the trucker convoys were either.
Some social media accounts were suspended and fundraisers were stopped.
You are very wrong.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/05/trump-jpmorgan-chase-bank-of...
https://apnews.com/article/trump-bank-lawsuit-florida-28c05c...
Trucker convoys were absolutely de-banked.
Your media consumption may be particularly biased if you didn't hear of this! I recommend following outlets from "both sides" even if you find the "other side" offensive. I hate to shill for Ground News, but it's great for this.
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> were happy or at least unperturbed when this happened to right wing figures like Donald Trump
When was Trump debanked?
> the trucker protestors in Canada
Speaking as someone on the other end of the spectrum from the trucker protestors in Canada, I was mortified by this
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/05/trump-jpmorgan-chase-bank-of...
It’s very easy to google this.
Btw they never denied but per usual said they could not comment on individual accounts. But he did at least sue capital one.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-bank-lawsuit-florida-28c05c...
Niether Trump nor the "truckers" in Canada were debanked. Freezing your funds in a given country can happen for a variety of reasons and is not remotely the same as debanking someone.
They were temporarily debanked under highly debatable circumstances. Regardless of your political leaning, if you care about basic human freedoms, the level of power the government has over the access individuals have to their finances (in addition to the degree to which every social institution is deeply entangled with that financial system) should be a cause for concern.
The Truckers were on Canadian soil and subject to Canadian law, there was no reason to freeze their accounts like this. They should have been pursued in criminal courts, during which their access to legal counsel should not have been obstructed.
Trump outright lost his J.P. Morgan accounts. Why you are you fabricating falsehoods?
This tactic broadcasts Trump's guilt, and the guilt of others by association. It's hard to imagine how this will play out. It's very worrisome that the USA is collapsing into a fascist state. I feel bad for young people who inherit the consequences of these terrible decisions.
There’s a fundamental flaw in the concept of “international justice”.
On a nation level the power of a court to prosecute individuals is supported by a policing force that is capable of resorting to violence on a local level that is acceptable for the greater peace.
On an international level, enforcing justice would ultimately require going to war, with mass casualties and likely numerous incidents of potential breaches of the law itself.
In the example of Israel vs Hamas, the ICC warrant included the leaders of Hamas - but the ICC had zero chance of actually arresting them, they were killed by Israel though. So half of the defendants carried out the justice sought by the ICC on the other half.
There's no such flaw in most cases brought to the ICC
The ICC is an international court but it administers trials (mostly) local to the members' jurisdiction so this point is moot. A warrant from the ICC doesn't ask the member states to go to war and hunt the target, it asks them to arrest them if the target is within their jurisdiction
The fact that the ICC warrant was unlikely to lead to Hamas' leaders arrest in the short term is not particularly meaningful
The "mostly" qualifier is because IIRC there are some provisions for truly extraterritorial prosecutions in the Rome treaty but I don't know that they've ever been actually used
“Justice” without enforcement is meaningless.
They have a warrant out for Putin, has that made any impact on the war in Ukraine?
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The national policing forces don't report to the courts. Instead, there are promises between the two. The argument that international courts cannot work because they don't have their own enforcement is weak. But you are right it would be equivalent to war, or "special military operations" such as Bin Ladin, if a ruling party is convicted.
This only applies if the individuals are a) protected by their country of residence and b) never leave it.
Neither of those are certain and even for people that a) applies to, b) can be a big hassle.
Just ask Netanyahu.
If the country itself has a justice system that can prosecute the individual, the ICC has no jurisdiction.
In the case of Israel the ICC used a loophole to work around this, since the Israeli courts are actually able to prosecute Netanyahu (and are currently doing so on other matters).
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> So half of the defendants carried out the justice sought by the ICC on the other half.
...without trial. And assuming guilty and sentenced to death.
I think this comment shows how far removed is the modern person living in a sheltered, matcha-sipping western environment from actual human historical reality. Do you seriously suggest that during an active war one side would bring the other to trial rather than just destroy them?
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Indeed, conflating execution without trial with ‘justice’ is utterly bizarre.
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Trial by which court?
This is standard rules of war. Soldiers don’t have to convene a court before shooting at enemy combatants.
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The US is not a serious country anymore.
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Brunel ran "modeling" agencies. Who else decided that was a good business to get into? The whole thing is not even close to the worst part of it yet.
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well well well, if it isn't mr I'm gonna call "far left" anything I don't agree with. GAFL
You may want to look up "sanction" in a dictionary, and then come back and explain how the ICC sanctioned anyone. They have zero executive power.
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Generally when you say these kinds of things, it's polite to not let your audience guess at what and who you mean. Could you please give us some links?
The latest example from a week ago. The article is pro sanctions (as all EU mainstream media).
The problem is these people were sanctioned, their lives ruined, without any legal process of conviction.
If the same happens to someone closer to the EU establishment, like ICC judge, EU, then they cry foul.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/12/18/who-are-the-we...
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The only lesson they will learn is that they need to control sanctions themselves and likely to use them more. Nothing good about this unless you want to see a weaker US and lilely a more federal EU.
Do you have a source?
See answer to the sibling comment.
Unpopular opinion, but the US and a handful of other countries do not recognize the ICC and in their eyes it does not exist; hence the US has no obligation to support them in any way.
The ICC was warned before picking on Israel, but it did not listen. Now they’re paying the consequences.
The long term consequence is that the US is proving that the rest of the world how dangerous it is to rely on US financial institutions. I very much doubt destroying the trustworthiness of its financial institutions in order to protect war criominals is beneficial for the US in the long run.
After WW2, the US did a lot of bad things but it did not change its status in the world. Nothing will change now or in the foreseeable future. And the “problem” is pretty simple: there is no one able to take its place.
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The ICC didn’t ‘pick on Israel’…
While the events on Oct 7th were horrific and undoubtedly deserved eliminating Hamas, Israel has collectively punished the civilian population of Gaza in the extreme (as they have been doing for years)
Let’s grant the worse case scenario argument against Israel’s actions. Their point still stands: neither Israel nor the USA recognize the authority of the ICC; they have not signed on to the treaty to be governed by it, and hence the ICC does not have the authority to look into either of ther actions.
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ICC also charged the responsible Hamas officials at the same time.
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> Israel has collectively punished the civilian population of Gaza in the extreme
So is any atrocity allowable if you have enough civilian human shields?
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> a handful of other countries do not recognize the ICC
Those "handful of countries" who do not recognize the ICC have more than 2/3rd of the world population btw.
Israel committed crimes against humanity in Palestine over which ICC does have jurisdiction. Whether US supports the ICC or not is irrelevant.
I had to dig this up because this was from August. Not sure why it is coming up now.
[1] https://www.state.gov/releases/2025/08/imposing-further-sanc...
I don’t think the ICC was plotting to undermine US or Israel sovereignty. The dispute is about jurisdiction. The ICC has a pretty expansive theory that says it can go after nationals of non-member states if the alleged conduct happened on the territory of a member state. That theory has been around for years and mostly lived in briefs and conferences. What changed in 2025 is that the ICC started acting on it and advancing real cases that implicated non-members. At that point it stopped being academic and started looking like a real-world precedent with consequences for allies and potentially US personnel. That’s the slippery slope. The administration had already tried protests and non-recognition and concluded it was not changing behavior. The August sanctions were framed as a last-resort escalation to draw a hard line against what they saw as ongoing overreach, not as a response to some new hostile intent.
Why does it have jurisdiction? Israel has not ratified the Rome Treaty, and have stated they will not do so. Without that the ICC does not have legal jurisdiction over their actions.
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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432107
I wonder if (when?) elites are going to use and support Bitcoin. Oppressive governments will force citizens - even such powerful as judges - to search for escapes.
The banking cartel will outlaw any real alternative. Bitcoin, Brics crypto system, whatever. And they will confiscate gold like back in the 30s. If they don't their magic money faucet will end. And they started wars for much smaller threats to their dominance.
First, a French judge has no power in the US. Second, Bitcoin is utter shit: it is not sustainable and mainly used to prop up criminals. Third, if money can be hidden and taxation becomes very difficult or impossible, society will collapse, and the "elite" loses its position. Bitcoin is not an alternative.
Cash is more anonymous and less trackable than Bitcoin and the society didn't collapse.
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Cryptocurrencies work fine. If the debanked were to use them, they would find 90% of their restrictions lifted immediately and without permission from anyone.
No, society will not collapse; it will stabilize. There are many forms of taxation, e.g. property, tarrifs, etc. that are unaffected.
Those who call Bitcoin utter shit always have an agenda and insecurities rooted in a feared loss of status.
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Time to protect EU citizens from US human rights abuses. Require EU banks to ignore foreign sanctions and call the US bluff.
Yeah, the EU should just call the bluff. The US is not going to do anything other than shake their fist angrily.
The problem there is that the EU has started copying the USA, and has just recently sanctioned multiple journalists for telling stories that don't align with their narrative on Russia/Ukraine.
Russia invaded Ukraine in its quest to enlarge the imperium. Russia is an aggressor seeking to expand even more.
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Time to protect citizens from EU human right and political abuses, too.
FWIW it's kind of refreshing to see a judicial official on the receiving end of this treatment. I know he's not one of the judges who permitted the debanking of protesters in Canada, but 1:1 of like-kind is probably all we can ask for.
Those who so flippantly censor and ostracise dissidents deserve a periodic taste of their own concoctions.
Nitpick:
> Both men are indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in the destruction of the Gaza Strip.
Role in destruction isn't a war crime they are being indicted for and as such irrelevant in this context.
The destruction of Gaza is obviously the context in which the war crimes and crimes against humanity occur(red).
No, you missed the point. They have been indicated to "as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts". Physical destruction can occur without being a war crime and those war crimes can occur without any destruction. So it didn't add any useful information infact it was actively misleading because some people might think they were indicated for destruction.
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What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The US is acting to impose sanctions on individuals with no direct ties to it by using its legal authority over American entities. The reason the US wants to do this is because the ICC is seeking to impose its legal authority over individuals whose state has not joined the ICC with novel legal theories and using its legal authority over ICC states. If the ICC had remained in areas where its legal authority is clear and not disputed, its judges and prosecutors wouldn't be facing this issue.
Can you be more specific? Which individuals and why (not)?
Note that eg if you're from (picking two random countries) Nepal and commit a crime in Italy, then Italy still has jurisdiction. Italian police can arrest you. [1]
Also, there's certain crimes that any country is allowed to arrest you for, for instance piracy on the high seas.
[1] Also explicitly taken into account in the Rome statue 12(2)(a) https://legal.un.org/icc/statute/99_corr/cstatute.htm
I'm talking about the sanctioned individuals on the ICC, judges and the prosecutor. The issue is not a matter of certain individuals going to a different country and allegedly committing a crime there. No one is talking about sea piracy.
So explain why the US used the same mechanisms against a Brazilian judge responsible for Bolsonaro's coup attempt case.
Was Brazil's justice trying to impose its legal authority outside of its jurisdictions? Nope. Was it hurting humans rights? Nope.
It's simply to bully, and meddle with entities that go against the interests of the current administration.
I don't buy your justification why this case is not the same, at all.
I'm talking about the ICC. I'm not trying to explain that.
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The only way the theory of international law holds any water is if countries are held to it regardless of the treaties they've signed. Any country that hasn't signed with the ICC is clearly a country run by criminals.
That's not how treaties work, and it's not how the ICC is supposed to work based on its explicit provisions.