International Criminal Court 'firmly rejects' new US sanctions

The International Criminal Court (ICC) strongly pushed back on Friday after the U.S. imposed new sanctions on its financial assets, slamming the move as "an assault on the rule of law." ICC President Tomoko Akane said in a video shared to the court's website that it “firmly rejects” the U.S.'s retaliation, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday morning as former ICC judge Navi Pillay was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. The Trump administration previously sanctioned Akane in August. Akane called the latest financial penalties an “attack” on the countries that created the ICC and on international legal order.  “It is an attack on the victims of mass atrocities who have waited years, sometimes decades, for those to be held to account,” she said. The international judicial body, based in The Hague, Netherlands, was created in 2002 to address global atrocities when countries are unable or fail to intervene. The ICC has pursued war crimes cases against U.S.-allied Israel over its military offensive in Gaza. Pillay, who received Nobel recognition for her contributions to boosting the impact of international law, recently oversaw a United Nations report that concluded that Israeli forces committed genocide in the region. In a video shared on social media announcing these sanctions, Rubio cited the court’s efforts to prosecute American citizens, despite the U.S. not being a member of the ICC. “We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their reso…