The move bars Karim Khan from the U.S. and freezes any U.S. assets he may have

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has become the first person working for the court to be subjected to economic and travel sanctions by the Trump administration, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to submit a report within 60 days naming people who should be sanctioned. Khan’s name was designated in an annex a day later, which was not yet made public, according to the report.

Those blacklisted are barred from entry into the U.S., along with their families, and their U.S. assets are frozen.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met last week with Trump in the White House, praised the move during a visit to Congress on Friday.

He called the ICC “scandalous,” saying it “threatens the right of all democracies to defend themselves.” In November, the court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli premier and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

Trump’s move targeting the Hague-based ICC over its investigations of U.S. citizens and U.S. allies is a repeat of a measure he took during his first term, when in June 2020 he ordered economic and travel sanctions against International Criminal Court employees involved in an investigation into whether U.S. troops committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

The tribunal on Friday decried the sanctions, vowing to back its staff and “continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, in all situations before it,” Reuters reported.

Two-thirds of the court’s member states, 79 in total, issued a joint statement warning that the U.S. measure could “threaten to erode the international rule of law.”

It added, “Sanctions would severely undermine all situations currently under investigation as the Court may have to close its field offices.”

Khan, who is British, paid a visit to New York as recently as Jan. 27 to brief the U.N. Security Council on Sudan.

As the chief prosecutor is a frequent traveler to New York, U.N. deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Friday that “we trust that any restrictions taken against individuals would be implemented consistently with the host country’s obligations under the U.N. Headquarters agreement.”

Trump’s order from Thursday includes a declaration of a national emergency to respond to the court’s “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.

“The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse and possible arrest,” the order states.

Neither the United States nor Israel is a member of the court, which is a stand-alone entity and is not part of the United Nations. Both Washington and Jerusalem assert that they are not subject to the tribunal’s jurisdiction.

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