Criminalising Accountability: The US lawfare against the international justice system

In this report, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (the Coalition or CICC) delves into the complex web of the United States (US) sanctions regime and exposes how a domestic legal instrument is able to function as a transnational policy enforcement mechanism intended to dismantle international justice efforts at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and beyond. Because of the extraordinary global reach of the US banking, Information Technology (IT) and service sectors, sanctions can be instrumentalised as part of an attack on efforts undertaken by two-thirds of the world’s states working in partnership with civil society and survivors to tackle impunity for the most serious international crimes. Ostensibly a response to the ICC’s investigations in Afghanistan and Palestine, sanctions targeting the Court threaten accountability efforts for victims and survivors across all ongoing investigations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Libya, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burundi, Bangladesh/Myanmar, the Philippines, Venezuela, Ukraine and Lithuania/Belarus.