The Trump administration has begun a diplomatic campaign aimed at isolating and potentially weakening the International Criminal Court, according to a U.S. State Department official. Options under consideration include travel restrictions, visa revocations, broader sanctions targeting the court and affiliated organizations, and pressure on other countries to leave the ICC.
The administration says the campaign is intended to protect U.S. sovereignty and prevent the court from prosecuting American officials and military personnel. The United States has never joined the ICC. A State Department official said countries that work with U.S. law enforcement, host U.S. forces or rely on U.S. security assistance are being urged to reject the court's asserted authority over Americans; countries that do not do so could face greater scrutiny.
The initiative comes as ICC prosecutors report progress in an investigation into alleged atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region. Deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said investigators had obtained additional evidence that she described as strongly linking events in Darfur to leadership levels. She did not identify the leadership concerned or say whether arrest-warrant applications had been made or were planned.
The court is examining attacks in al-Geneina in 2023 and al-Fashir the following year. U.N. experts have said alleged crimes by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces against non-Arab communities in those areas bore hallmarks of genocide. The RSF has denied targeting civilians and said it would hold individual perpetrators accountable. Sudan is not an ICC member, but the U.N. Security Council gave the court jurisdiction over alleged atrocity crimes in Darfur from 2005 onward.
Created in 2002 to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, the ICC says it acts where national authorities are unable or unwilling to prosecute such crimes. Its practical ability to enforce arrest warrants depends on cooperation from states, placing its investigations and judicial work at the center of an increasingly contested diplomatic debate.
