WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration has prepared sanctions against the entire International Criminal Court and plans to announce them soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, a move that would step up its attack on the global tribunal that prosecutes war crimes and genocide worldwide.

The Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for the court and has worked to undermine it. US officials want the court to drop its arrest warrants against Israeli leaders as well as a past probe into American troops in Afghanistan. Previous US sanctions have targeted individual court officials rather than the entire ICC.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in July announced a campaign to isolate the court, calling on other countries to withdraw from the tribunal. And last month, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the ICC’s president and one of its top prosecutors. The sanctions against ICC president Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, freeze any assets that they have in US jurisdictions or that come into contact with the US financial system.

“The Trump administration has been clear: the International Criminal Court is a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate,” Rubio said at the time. “We will not tolerate its assault on state sovereignty.”

Seye is a senior trial lawyer on the prosecution team that obtained an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza........

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