ICC prosecutor says court making ‘significant progress’ despite US sanctions

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 new US sanctions are beginning to take effect on its staff but insisted they have not hindered the court’s work.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced the sanctions this month, accusing the ICC – a frequent target of the Trump administration – of being a “rogue court” and declaring: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC.”

Nazhat Shameem Khan, who is co-running the office pending the appointment of a new chief prosecutor, said the court was so far continuing its work.

She said the Gaza war investigation and others had made “significant progress” since war crimes arrest warrants were issued in November 2024 for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Galant. Further applications from the prosecutor were being kept secret by order of the court, she said.

Some ICC staff had however encountered banking problems, she said, even though the US sanctions on the court were not due to take effect until six months from 9 October, the date of their announcement. She said the banks were “over-complying” to minimise risk while there was uncertainty over the ultimate scope of the measures.

“These are sanctions imposed on the institutions and, in principle, our individual members should not be impacted directly,” the Fijian deputy prosecutor said in an interview with the Guardian. “But again, what I am hearing from members of our staff is that some of them are experiencing difficulties in banking.”

The court is working on insulating itself from sanctions imposed by a hostile administration in Washington. It has switched its software from Microsoft to European ​alternatives, and is negotiating with relevant service providers over banking and health insurance.

“All the investigations across all situations continue. We haven’t made any decision based on the sanctions to reduce our capability or reduce our output,” Khan said, acknowledging that it was impossible to anticipate the full impact of sanctions when they officially took effect.

The new sanctions target the whole institution of the ICC, but the US first targeted 13 ICC staff in February 2025. Khan was one of them, so is accustomed to dealing with sanctions, which affect aspects of everyday life.

“Life without a credit card is inconvenient. It’s amazing how many things now we cannot do around the world, particularly in relation to travel, without a credit card,” she said, but added that her inconvenience was put into perspective when she visited refugee camps or sites of mass atrocities.

“We see the faces of our victims for whom sanctions and credit cards are completely irrelevant. They just want justice.”

American sanctions are not the only disruption to the ICC prosecutors’ work. Formal investigations began in late November 2024 into allegations of sexual harassment against the former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. The British jurist (who is no relation to the deputy prosecutor) denied the charges. He was removed in July this year after a vote by member states.