PARIS -- The Trump administration announced sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court on Friday, threatening to dismantle the institution after it issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The announcement comes on the day that Navi Pillay, a South African former ICC judge, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The committee cited her "efforts to promote peace and international law."
The sanctions could deal a potentially crippling blow to the ICC by cutting it off from the U.S. financial system and prohibiting it from conducting transactions in dollars. Western banks often refuse to deal at all with sanctioned entities, because of the difficulty of separating their dollar trades from transactions in other major currencies.
"Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a video Friday, arguing that the court threatens American sovereignty by threatening to prosecute U.S. citizens despite Washington never having joined it.
The sanctions allow a grace period until April 7, which officials said would give time for negotiations between the U.S. and ICC member states. A senior European official said talks already had begun to craft a deal that aimed to address U.S. concerns. U.S. officials are seeking guarantees that the court won't target U.S. citizens. They have criticized the court's stance that it can prosecute citizens of nonmember states, a group that includes the U.S., Israel and Russia.
The grace period "is crucial because it provides us vital space for dialogue in the upcoming months," Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said at a press conference shortly after the decision.
Reining in the court's jurisdiction, however, likely would require member states to amend the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC. The statute allows the court to prosecute nonmember state nationals if they commit war crimes and crimes against humanity on the territory of member states. The court's backers consider that provision a fundamental principle of international criminal law.
The ICC has used that authority to prosecute Netanyahu for alleged war crimes on Palestinian territory, which is considered a court member state, and Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged crimes in Ukraine. It has also allowed the court to investigate alleged crimes committed by Central Intelligence Agency officials and the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
Washington informed European capitals of the decision on Thursday. Rubio issued a warning to them and other U.S. allies that belong to the court. "We expect our allies, many of whom are part of the ICC and that rely on American servicemembers for their defense, to rein in this rogue court," he said.
The ICC said it wouldn't be deterred by the U.S. sanctions.
"The court will continue to fully discharge its mandate, with independence and impartiality, acting only on the basis of law and the evidence, for the sake of the countless victims of grave crimes," said ICC President Tomoko Akane.
The ICC, based in The Hague, is heir to the Nuremberg tribunals that prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II and special courts that held trials after the Yugoslav wars and the Rwandan genocide. European governments and human-rights groups view it as an important institution for enforcing international law, even though the world's most powerful and populous nations -- the U.S., China, India and Russia -- aren't members.
The U.S. has long had concerns that the Rome Statute would allow the ICC to prosecute U.S. soldiers and officials. The Clinton administration helped negotiate the treaty, but former President Bill Clinton worried the final text would subject nonmember state officials to prosecution.
Clinton signed it anyway, saying: "Signature will enhance our ability to further protect U.S. officials from unfounded charges and to achieve the human rights and accountability objectives of the ICC."
The treaty was never ratified by the Senate. A few years later, former President George W. Bush signed a law that restricted U.S. cooperation with the court.
The U.S. already has sanctioned a number of ICC officials. They include former Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, whom the ICC ousted in July over sexual-assault allegations against him; Akane and several other judges; the court's two deputy prosecutors; and the lead prosecutor in the case against Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. Khan has denied any sexual misconduct.
The sanctions announced Friday are far more punitive, applying to the institution as a whole. The court has been bracing for the move for months. It has paid employees through the end of the year and switched away from Microsoft to a German open-source software system.
The European Union called the U.S. decision "deeply regrettable" and pledged to work with the ICC to ensure it continues to operate effectively.
Some officials have suggested the EU could use a so-called blocking statute to prevent EU-based banks or businesses from complying with the sanctions, and the Belgian foreign minister immediately called for the statute to be used. The EU said it stands ready "to take any necessary measures" to allow the court to keep working.