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Nazhat Shameem Khan claims some staff are facing ‘banking difficulties’ but their work is unaffected The deputy prosecutor of the international criminal court has said that new US sanctions are already beginning to take effect on its staff but insisted they have not hindered the court’s work. US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced the sanctions earlier this month , accusing the ICC – a frequent Trump administration target – of being a “rogue court” and declaring: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.” Continue reading...

The Sakharov Prize, the EU's highest honor for upholding human rights has been awarded to the embattled International Criminal Court in the Hague.

We speak with the acclaimed South African human rights lawyer and international jurist Navi Pillay, who was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Pillay has been the United Nations high commissioner for human rights and a judge at both the International Criminal Court and at an international tribunal investigating the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Most recently, she led the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry that concluded Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Hours after Pillay was announced as winner of the Nobel Prize, the United States imposed sweeping new sanctions against the International Criminal Court. “It’s extremely shocking to me, totally unacceptable, that the United States administration can today impose sanctions against the International Criminal Court,” says Pillay, speaking to Democracy Now! from The Hague. Navi Pillay is now 85 years old. She was born into an Indian Tamil family in apartheid South Africa in 1941. The first woman to start a law practice in Natal, South Africa, in 1967, Pillay began her legal career defending anti-apartheid activists including Nelson Mandela, exposing torture, and helping establish key rights for prisoners on Robben Island. Mandela, as president, later appointed Pillay to the High Court of South Africa, making her the first woman of color on that bench.

Here’s what we need to do to stand up for international law Many applauded when Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel peace prize. The South African human rights lawyer had chaired the UN commission of inquiry that found Israel to have committed genocide in Gaza and served for five years as a judge on the international criminal court (ICC). Donald Trump responded a few hours later by imposing sanctions on the ICC. He chose a moment for celebrating the rule of law to try to undermine it. Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, a senior fellow at Yale University and a former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments Continue reading...