Rubio Just Put the International Criminal Court’s Own President On a Sanctions List

Marco Rubio just put a sitting international court president on a US sanctions list.

Tomoko Akane runs the same court that spent years hunting American soldiers and Israeli leaders.

Now she's learning what happens when Washington stops playing along with the hunt.

The Court That Picked a Fight With the Wrong Country

The State Department confirmed Rubio sanctioned ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye this week, freezing any US assets and barring their entry into the country.

Rubio framed it in blunt terms.

He called the ICC a "sham court."

He said the sanctions exist to shield Americans and Israelis from a body that has no legal authority over either country, according to RedState and the Daily Caller.

Neither the United States nor Israel ever joined the Rome Statute that created the ICC.

That single fact is the entire legal argument, and it's one the court keeps ignoring anyway.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies laid it out clearly when Trump signed his first ICC executive order last year: the court has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel, full stop.

Akane and Seye did not get sanctioned for nothing.

They got sanctioned for running a court that tried to prosecute people it was never legally allowed to touch.

This Is Not Rubio's First Swing at The Hague

Trump and Rubio have been dismantling this court piece by piece for well over a year now.

Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was the first target, sanctioned back in February 2025 after he pushed for arrest warrants against Israeli officials over the Gaza war.

Axios and Yahoo News confirmed a second round followed months later, hitting more ICC judges tied to the Afghanistan and Israel probes.

Now it's the court's own president.

Every round has targeted officials involved in cases against Americans and Israelis, the same two groups the Rome Statute was never supposed to cover in the first place.

The pattern never changes.

The ICC opens a case against a US ally or US personnel.

Rubio responds with sanctions naming names.

The court screams about judicial independence while conveniently skipping the part where it lacks jurisdiction to begin with.

Why the Legal Establishment Keeps Losing This Argument

Legal analysts at outlets like Verfassungsblog keep trying to frame these sanctions as an attack on the rule of law.

That framing collapses the moment you ask a simple question: whose law.

The United States never ratified the treaty that created the court.

No American court has ever recognized a foreign prosecutor's right to freeze a US soldier's bank account or bar an American general from boarding a plane in Europe.

That is not theoretical.

It is exactly what these sanctions now block in reverse, freezing Akane and Seye out of the US financial system and off American soil.

A club that 120-plus countries joined does not get to police the two dozen major nations, including the United States, China, Russia, and India, that refused to join it.

Israel faces the same basic math.

It never signed up either, and it has run its own military justice system for decades.

The ICC pursuing Israeli officials is not accountability.

It's a foreign court reaching past its own charter to punish a democracy for defending itself against terrorists who use civilians as human shields.

Rights groups have already sued the Trump administration over the sanctions, and the ICC has predictably "deplored" the move in a statement.

None of that changes the math above.

The Court Wanted a Fight and Rubio Gave It One

Akane had every chance to see this coming, given what happened to the two officials who came before her.

The court could have stayed in its lane and prosecuted actual war criminals in places with no dispute over its authority.

Instead it went hunting for American soldiers and Israeli leaders who never signed up to answer to The Hague.

Akane now knows personally what that decision costs.

Her predecessor Karim Khan found out first, and the sanctions kept coming for everyone who followed his lead.

Rubio has made one thing clear: the United States is done pretending this court has any say over American or Israeli citizens, and every official who signs onto the next case against either country should expect their name on the next list.

Sources:

• Bob Hoge, "Rubio Slaps ICC Head, Senior Lawyer With Sanctions, Vows to Shield Americans From Sham Court," RedState, August 18, 2026.
• Daily Caller Staff, "Trump Admin Announces Sanctions Against International Criminal Court Chief," The Daily Caller, August 19, 2026.
• Dmitri Bolt, "Secretary of State Marco Rubio Just Escalated America's War Against the International Criminal Court," Townhall, August 19, 2026.
• Washington Examiner Staff, "Rubio sanctions ICC leaders to stop court from trying pretend offenses," Washington Examiner, August 18, 2026.
• Foundation for Defense of Democracies, "No Jurisdiction Over the United States or Israel: Trump Signs Executive Order Sanctioning International Criminal Court," FDD, February 6, 2025.