https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/12/assembly-states-parties-m...
“ICC member states have to demonstrate their collective resolve to defend the ICC’s ability to pursue individual responsibility, including against the most powerful perpetrators, in independent and impartial proceedings. The Assembly must send a collective message to the USA that its sanctions on the Court, which have specifically targeted ICC officials and Palestinian organizations, must be rescinded,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns at Amnesty International.
“The ICC is facing existential attack from certain states, such as the USA and Russia. The ICC’s member states must not be silent in the face of these threats; they must defend the Court’s independence and its ability to pursue individual accountability, including against those who are most powerful and would otherwise enjoy the prospect of perpetual impunity.
The Assembly must rise to the existential challenges facing the ICC and demonstrate its firm resolve to protect it.
Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns
“Indications that some states in the Assembly wish to use the session to signal that member states are willing to seek ‘engagement’ with the USA over the sanctions it has already imposed, and on the terms set out within its sanctions, are deeply troubling and misguided. The sanctions must be opposed, not appeased.
“It is abundantly clear that the price of the US government’s removal of its egregious sanctions would be for the ICC to halt its Palestine work and potentially to obtain assurances related to the Court’s jurisdiction over non-ICC member states’ nationals. Such concessions would wholly contravene the Court’s foundational principles of independence, impartiality and territorial jurisdiction.
“US sanctions on the ICC negatively impact the interests of victims, who look to the Court for justice in all the countries where it is conducting investigations, from Darfur to Libya, the Philippines, Palestine, Ukraine and Venezuela. The Assembly must rise to the existential challenges facing the ICC and demonstrate its firm resolve to protect it and the rights of all victims whose prospects of justice depend on the Court.”
Background
The 24th session of the ASP takes place in The Hague, Netherlands, from 1-6 December 2025. The Assembly is the ICC’s management oversight and legislative body and is composed of 125 states which have ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute. At the Assembly session, states will hold a general debate and consider issues such as the Court’s 2026 budget and non-cooperation.
Amnesty International has published general recommendations prior to the 24th ASP session.
On 6 February 2025, US President Trump enacted an Executive Order ‘Imposing Sanctions On The International Criminal Court’. The Executive Order was motivated in response to the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants in November 2024 against Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel; Yoav Gallant, former Israeli Minister of Defense; and al-Qassam brigades commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Deif; for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC Prosecutor, two Deputy Prosecutors and six ICC judges, as well as Palestinian human rights organizations (Al Haq, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and Al Mezan) have been designated as sanctioned by the order, alongside the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
