The Trump administration has taken another step in its crusade against the international criminal court by imposing sanctions on two more senior ICC officials. The growing number of sanctioned jurists – now 13 – does not change the lawless nature of this quest.

Donald Trump and his henchman, Marco Rubio, want to make the world safe for US and Israeli war criminals. No one should let them.

The latest victims of Trump’s vendetta are the ICC president – its chief judge, Tomoko Akane of Japan – and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, a senior ICC trial lawyer, evidently for his role advancing the prosecution of Israeli officials. Yet the real victims are not these particular individuals, but people worldwide who look to the court as one of the few avenues of recourse against unscrupulous leaders who commit mass atrocities such as fighting wars by targeting civilians.

We should never let Trump normalize these sanctions. Their main effect is to deprive the target of the ability to use the international financial system – no credit cards, no access to banks, extreme difficulty navigating a modern economy. That is a tool once reserved for corrupt or violent officials who were otherwise beyond the law. Trump is using them to attack the public officials who would bring such heinous individuals to justice.

Rubio, the secretary of state, dressed up the sanctions with high-sounding rhetoric about the ICC threatening “America sovereignty”. That is true only if Americans (and Israelis) have a sovereign right to commit war crimes wherever they want. Even Rubio cannot get himself to spell out what King Trump’s campaign is really about.

Rubio’s main articulated complaint is that the ICC can “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”. That is true, but it is wrong........

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