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submitted 15 hours ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Marco Rubio targets ICC’s Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, who was investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza

The US has sanctioned the president of the international criminal court (ICC) and a prosecutor tasked with investigating crimes committed by Israel during its war on Gaza.

The new sanctions designations were unveiled by Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, who called the Hague-based ICC a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate”, in a statement.

Rubio announced that the US would sanction Tomoko Akane of Japan, the ICC president, and Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, an ICC senior trial lawyer, because they had “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”.

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[-] darth_grunkus@lemmy.world 9 points 12 hours ago

What does sanctioned even mean in this context? How does the US government sanction a single person living in a completely different country?

[-] AMoralNihilist@feddit.uk 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

All sanctions imposed by any government are effectively nationwide legally imposed boycotts.

Sanctions against Russia for example are generally things like : we will not buy your oil, we will not allow our companies to sell products to you, etc. etc.

Same thing goes for sanctions against individuals, they make it illegal for any US based entities to have certain scopes of dealings with the target. Some sanctions go further and also refuse to deal with entities who deal with the target.

Therefore, depending on what sanctions have been imposed, they may have just made it illegal for them to have a visa or MasterCard, use any Microsoft or Google or apple software or services, etc. etc. etc.

  • It's the other way around actually. Illegal for Visa/MasterCard or Microsoft or Google or apple, etc. to allow them to use their services.
[-] inconel@lemmy.ca 15 points 10 hours ago

There's precedents on deleting your google account and denying credit card transaction as "sanction". I won't be surprised other US-based platforms to follow suits. This just highlights ever increasing need of digital and financial sovereignty

[-] scutiger@lemmy.world 11 points 10 hours ago

If their bank has dealings in the USA, they can be de-banked. If they use American credit cards, those can be shut down. Accounts for companies based in the USA can be disabled/deleted or otherwise flagged. They can be blocked from flying on American and allied airlines, or from flying through those countries.

Basically the US government will convince whoever they can to stop dealing with that person, or just to fuck with them in any way they can.

[-] Eril@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

About time some serious non-US alternatives to Visa and MasterCard emerge. I am not sanctioned by anyone, but still hate that I have to use those cards (or PayPal fwiw) all the time.

this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
212 points (99.5% liked)

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