Marco Rubio Fights Lawfare with Sanctions — and Wins

A UN official is getting her due for persecuting Israel and the United States using a bogus international court system — and she won’t be the last.

On July 9, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. Albanese has used her platform at the United Nations to relentlessly attack Israel and wage economic warfare against US companies.

The sanctions sent reverberations through other UN bodies that have been weaponizing international law to fuel illegitimate investigations focusing on the United States and Israel.

Days after the State Department’s announcement, all three commissioners of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry — another UN mechanism established for attacking Israel at Turtle Bay — resigned their posts.  

The Trump administration has sanctioned officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the past in response to attacks on the United States and Israel. However, this is the first time that Washington has acted not just against the overreaching court itself, but against those, such as Albanese, that directly engage in the ICC’s efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel.

On July 3, Albanese submitted a report to the UN that called on member states to boycott and sanction the Jewish State. The special rapporteur also urged UN member states and the ICC to investigate and prosecute corporations and their executives — including those of American companies — who have done business with Israel.

The ICC was established in 2002 with the lofty goal of prosecuting individuals for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. The court was supposed to intervene only when countries were unwilling or unable to genuinely investigate or prosecute such crimes themselves, and the US government has long argued that the ICC has jurisdiction only over countries that are party to the Rome Statute.

When the court was established, both the US and Israel — two democracies that have robust judicial systems and internal review processes — declined to join the court, fearing it would become yet another venue for lawfare – i.e. the weaponization of law to pursue a political agenda.

Unfortunately, the American and Israeli fears were justified; the ICC has become one of the world’s premier venues for lawfare against both the US and Israel.

President Donald Trump’s efforts to combat the ICC began during his first term. In 2020, the court’s then-chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, opened an investigation that put the US military and the entire defense establishment at risk of arrest when traveling abroad. They could then be imprisoned until trial at The Hague.

Washington opposed the investigation, arguing that not only did the court lack jurisdiction, but the court was superfluous, as the United States was capable of handling such investigations. The Trump administration attempted to block the investigation, publishing an executive order that threatened visa bans and sanctions on ICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members.

Despite the explicit warning from Washington, Bensouda pursued the investigation. And in September 2020, Washington sanctioned the chief prosecutor and one member of her staff, freezing their assets in the United States and listing them as “specially designated nationals,” a title usually reserved for terrorists and international drug traffickers.

The Biden administration foolishly reversed Trump’s order, arguing that engagement is the best way to make progress with those that wish to harm the United States and our allies.

Likely emboldened by the Biden administration’s decision, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in the last months of Biden’s term.

Trump remedied the Biden administration’s wrong-footed policy in February, publishing Executive Order 14203, designating the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. Three months later the State Department added sanctions on four ICC judges.

The Executive Order broadened the administration’s authorities to tackle the ICC, authorizing sanctions on those directly engaged with the international court. Albanese would have been wise to heed the administration’s warning and think twice before producing the report that urged the prosecution of more than a dozen US companies and their executives.

 A July 18 preliminary injunction issued by a US district court judge in Maine has been characterized as blocking enforcement of the order. However, the injunction only bars the government from enforcing the executive order against two US citizens, and only in response to their “provision of speech-based services to the ICC.” All of the foreign persons sanctioned under the order thus far – Karim Khan, four ICC judges, and Francesca Albanese — remain sanctioned. 

The lawfare industry is robust and presents dozens of additional targets for sanctions under Trump’s executive order. Going forward, the Trump administration should sanction the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF). The group exists to pursue legal action, in both international and national courts, against individuals they deem responsible for alleged Israeli war crimes against Palestinians. The HRF is endangering more than 1,000 IDF soldiers by urging they be arrested if they leave Israel so that they can be tried for war crimes. By directly engaging with the ICC in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israelis , the Hind Rajab Foundation is clearly deserving of legal consequences, just as special rapporteur Albanese is.

Enia Krivine is the senior director of the Israel Program and the National Security Network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on X @EKrivine.

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