The International Criminal Court (ICC) strongly rejects United States sanctions against the institution..."No one should be punished for serving the cause of justice. History will judge this moment. Future generations, and above all the victims of mass atrocities, will ask how we responded when an institution created to protect them came under attack. They will ask whether the Court held firm and whether the international community defended the principles it proclaimed or allowed them to be abandoned under pressure. "

The International Criminal Court

Press Release: 9 October 2026 

Today, the United States has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court as an institution. This unprecedented step follows a series of designations against thirteen independent Judges and prosecutors who serve the cause of justice. 

This measure targets an independent judicial institution, created by treaty and entrusted by 125 States Parties with investigating and prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. It is an attempt to obstruct the course of justice and to prevent the Court from doing what it was created to do. It is an assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order which strikes at the simple principle that no one stands above the law.

The designation is aimed at disrupting the Court’s operations and at intimidating those who work for or cooperate with the Court. The Court, for its part, will not be deterred. “The Court will continue to fully discharge its mandate, with independence and impartiality, acting only on the basis of the law and the evidence, for the sake of the countless victims of grave crimes” said ICC President Tomoko Akane. 

Yet the Court cannot stand alone. Its fate now rests also in the hands of the States that created it. The Rome Statute is a collective promise that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished. That promise is only as strong as the resolve of those who made it. 

There may be challenges. But, together with its States Parties, the Court has made considerable efforts to ensure the continuity and resilience of its activities. The Court calls upon States to continue taking concrete actions, including to ensure that the Court continues to have the necessary means to continue its work. This is not just about defending a single institution, but about safeguarding the international order grounded upon the rule of law. 

No one should be punished for serving the cause of justice. History will judge this moment. Future generations, and above all the victims of mass atrocities, will ask how we responded when an institution created to protect them came under attack. They will ask whether the Court held firm and whether the international community defended the principles it proclaimed or allowed them to be abandoned under pressure. 

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For further information, please contact the ICC Public Affairs Unit. You can also follow the Court’s activities on Twitter/X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Flickr.

 https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/icc-strongly-rejects-us-sanctions-against-institution

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Israel and the US have battered the international legal order. The impunity must stop

‘What can countries do? History points to some answers.’ Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

A group of nations will gather on Friday to address the crisis. The only response to unilateral bullying is collective action 

Fri 25 Sep 2026 

Varsha Gandikota

The international legal order is in shambles. But from the ruins of impunity and lawbreaking, a group of nations is working to enforce accountability.

On Monday, the UN general assembly’s high-level meetings opened to news that Washington had drawn up sanctions against the international criminal court, targeting its bank accounts, software, insurers and staff.

On Tuesday, the US president stood at the podium and threatened Iran with annihilation. On Thursday at the same rostrum, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the ICC for war crimes, cast all those seeking accountability as “barbarians who threaten our common civilization”. Palestinian officials were absent, denied travel visas by the United States.

Netanyahu has never pretended to respect international law. When South Africa brought its Genocide Convention case against Israel’s actions in Gaza, Netanyahu declared: “Nobody will stop us – not The Hague.” This summer, he mused on American television that, should his plane ever be forced down in a country that honours the warrant, Israel’s special forces could be given “a new task”. The American president has promised he will not be arrested on US soil “in any way, shape, or form”. 

The message to the world is plain: crimes committed by the allies and acolytes of power will never be punished.

This impunity is not limited to Gaza. It’s playing out in the accelerating ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. It has travelled to Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have killed more than 4,000 people this year and displaced more than a million. In southern Syria, Israeli troops shell and raid villages in the countryside around Damascus. In Sudan, massacres are carried out with arms, technology and financing of the United Arab Emirates, an ally of the Israeli government.

Every commander with a patron has learnt the lesson of the past three years. Mass atrocity carries no price if your friends are strong enough.

States that resist encounter punishments in dizzying varieties – sanctions, tarriffs, threats and isolation. South Africa lost US aid after bringing its genocide case to The Hague. Colombia’s president had his visa revoked after speaking out on Gaza in the streets of New York.

This too will not remain confined to the global south. Instruments built for terrorists and drug cartels are now pointed at judges. More than a dozen ICC judges and prosecutors, including the court’s president, already live under US sanctions. A designation of the whole institution would reach every European bank, insurer and technology supplier serving a court that sits in the Netherlands.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/25/israel-us-un-icc-hague-netanyahu?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

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On Tuesday's #HolocaustRemembrance Day, we honour the memory of all those who perished in the Holocaust & the enduring legacy of those who survived. Today & every day, we must counter antisemitism, Holocaust denial & distortion and all forms of hatred.

 On Tuesday's #HolocaustRemembrance Day, we honour the memory of all those who perished in the Holocaust & the enduring legacy of those who survived.

Today & every day, we must counter antisemitism, Holocaust denial & distortion and all forms of hatred. https://un.org/en/observances 

https://x.com/UN/status/2016013548137181231  

 

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https://www.un.org/en/observances/commemoration-holocaust-victims-day

A warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice."

  - United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/76/250 on Holocaust Denial

Holocaust Remembrance for Dignity and Human Rights

The United Nations was established in response to the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Holocaust has had a profound impact on International Human Rights Law, resulting in the United Nations’ adoption of foundational documents in 1948: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7 in 2005 designated 27 January as the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and established the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme. This date was chosen as it marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp on 27 January 1945.

The International Day is a global reminder of the dangers of hatred, bigotry and antisemitism. The Day is a call to remember, reflect and take action to ensure such atrocities never happen again. The International Day is observed with commemorative events and activities at United Nations Headquarters in New York and the United Nations offices around the world.

Gaza City, Gaza: A displaced Palestinian girl looks out from her tent in Gaza City- Photograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters- Holocaust remembrance and a tsunami museum: photos of the day –The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world Tuesday 27 January 2026 ... & "“I represent one and a half million children who were murdered and who are not here to speak for themselves,” Friedman told German media. “My story is representative of all their stories because we all had similar experiences. I was simply luckier than them, because I survived.”"

Gaza City, Gaza

A displaced Palestinian girl looks out from her tent in Gaza CityPhotograph: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters

 

Holocaust remembrance and a tsunami museum: photos of the day – Tuesday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2026/jan/27/holocaust-remembrance-and-a-tsunami-museum-photos-of-the-day-tuesday?CMP=share_btn_url#img-7

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& 

‘I was simply luckier’: Holocaust survivors warn against forgetting Nazi atrocities

People urged to stand up against populism and antisemitism as the world marks International Holocaust Memorial Day

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/27/i-was-simply-luckier-holocaust-survivors-warn-against-forgetting-nazi-atrocities 

"... Friedman, who emigrated to the US where she became a successful therapist, warned against the rise of the populist far-right in Europe. She said she would directly address the AfD, which is up for election in five states this year and is predicted to do well in at least three of them.

The anti-immigrant party, which backs policies such as the mass deportation of non-naturalised citizens, has repeatedly called for an end to what it calls “Schuldkult” or a “culture of guilt”, to describe the perpetuation of the memory of Nazi crimes.

“I want very much to face up to them, not to hide away from them,” said Friedman.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat warned that antisemitism was more rampant than at any time since the Holocaust, and was “taking on new and disturbing forms”. She also warned of AI-generated content which was being deliberately created “to blur the line between fact and fiction, distort historical truth and undermine our collective memory”. 

The Frankfurt-based Anne Frank Educational Centre drew attention to a “flood” of AI-generated content being used like propaganda, in which the victims were ridiculed, with the aim of denying or trivialising them.

Representatives of the Jewish community across the world, including Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, urged people to show “civil courage” and stand up for democracy at a time when ...."  READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/27/i-was-simply-luckier-holocaust-survivors-warn-against-forgetting-nazi-atrocities

Candles were placed at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. Photograph: Liesa Johannssen/Reuters

 

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"End the impunity before atrocities become the new norm." Philippe Lazzarini

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 Philippe Lazzarini

@UNLazzarini

#Gaza has been the battleground of a fierce & rampant information war. 

Dis-information continues to be used as a tool to distract from the atrocities in the war-torn enclave. 

The first target was @UNRWA followed by other UN agencies, the media & health institutions. 

The recent denial of famine in #Gaza as well as of the conclusions of the UN commission of inquiry released this week are the latest examples. They aim at undermining world experts assessments + analysis & at promoting narratives denying atrocities + dehumanizing Palestinians. 

Meanwhile, the heroic work of Palestinian journalists continues against all odds as the Israeli military operations expand. 

It’s time to let international journalists into Gaza to support their Palestinian colleagues before their voices are also silenced. 

Time to report independently on events.

https://amp.dw.com/en/israel-propaganda-downplays-gaza-food-scarcity-fact-check/a-73875380 

 

Philippe Lazzarini

@UNLazzarini

·

Sep 11

At least 2,000 desperate & hungry people have been killed while seeking food aid. The vast majority were killed near sites of the so called “Gaza humanitarian foundation”. 

 

This deadly mechanism is manned by mercenaries including anti-Muslim gangsters @BBC 

 

Addressing famine in #Gaza requires uninterrupted, at scale & safe access to people in need wherever they are. The UN, including @UNRWA + partners have the resources & the expertise. 

 

Let us do our job

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2zy4l8jgeo 

Philippe Lazzarini

@UNLazzarini

·

Sep 9

#Gaza is being obliterated, reduced to a wasteland. 

 

Gaza is being emptied from its starving population forced to move into the so called “humanitarian” area of Mawasi. 

 

There is no safe place in Gaza, let alone a humanitarian zone. It is a large and growing camp concentrating hungry Palestinians in despair. 

 

Warnings of #famine have fallen on deaf ears. 

 

Will warnings of this deepening catastrophe also fall on deaf ears? #Ceasefire, before it is way too late. 

 

End the impunity before atrocities become the new norm.

 

Philippe Lazzarini

@UNLazzarini

It has been 18 months since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of genocide, including acting in full co-operation with the United Nations, to ensure the unhindered provision of urgently needed basic services & humanitarian assistance. 

 

The UN Commission of Inquiry has concluded in its report yesterday that: “Far from cooperating with the United Nations […] Israel responded by proscribing and excluding the principal UN agency providing aid and humanitarian assistance, @UNRWA”. 

 

In finding that the State of Israel has committed genocide, the Commission stated that through: “interconnected political and politicised measures”, including the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), Israel has blocked and obstructed trusted aid agencies (including UNRWA) from bringing in essential and life-saving aid, for the purposes of bringing about “the physical destruction of the Palestinians in #Gaza through unlivable conditions of life in the Gaza Strip”. 

 

I urge all Member States to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza & facilitate the unfettered deployment of the United Nations’ humanitarian operations – including UNRWA’s expertise with its unparalleled aid distribution network – to reverse #famine & provide critical assistance to people in need. #CeasefireNow

 

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session60/advance-version/a-hrc-60-crp-3.pdf 

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