Nobel laureate Navi Pillay calls US sanctions on the ICC 'unheard of' and 'unacceptable' as allies push back

From the Newshound archive · first published 10 October 2026.

Navi Pillay, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, has publicly condemned the sweeping US sanctions on the International Criminal Court as "unheard of" and "unacceptable". The 85-year-old South African former ICC judge, speaking from Oslo on Saturday, warned of "so much tension and anxiety" over the court's survival after Trump imposed financial sanctions on the institution itself — not just individual officials — for the first time. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the measures on Friday, threatening to "end the ICC" unless it dropped what he called threats against Americans.

The sanctions freeze the ICC's US-held assets and ban American entities from transacting with the court, with a six-month grace period before the strictest measures take effect.

Eight US allies — among them the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Denmark and the Netherlands — jointly said they "regret and strongly disagree" with the sanctions, defying Rubio's demand that allies "rein in" the court.

ICC president Tomoko Akane called the measures "an attack on victims of mass atrocities who have waited years, sometimes decades, for those to be held to account."