Trump authorizes sanctions against International Criminal Court officials for investigating American actions in Afghanistan

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that allows sanctions to be imposed on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials involved in the investigation of possible crimes by US military personnel in Afghanistan.

The order allows the US Treasury to freeze the financial assets of ICC employees, and the State Department to ban them from entering the country.

A statement on the White House website notes that the ICC is "conducting political investigations" against the United States and its allies, including Israel, and that Washington has reason to believe that corruption exists at the highest levels of the ICC leadership, so its investigations may be biased.

• The United States has not ratified the Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court, and does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC over American citizens.
• A preliminary international investigation into the actions of the Americans, the Taliban and the local military in Afghanistan began in 2006. In 2017, the prosecution stated that there were grounds to believe that war crimes had been committed during the conflict. In March 2020, the ICC Appeals Chamber launched a full investigation.