Trump's return puts global justice court in hot water over Israel probe
International Criminal Court faces double-trouble: US political pressure and internal leadership crisis. New probe into Israel-Palestine conflict brings sanctions threat while prosecutor deals with workplace misconduct claims
The worldʼs top justice court cant catch a break - with Donald Trump winning the White house‚ its facing heat over its Israel-Palestine investigation (which started back in spring 2024)
Karim Khan‚ the ICC prosecutor started the mess when he asked to arrest both Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas chiefs; this made US lawmakers mad. John Thune the future Senate leader wants to hit ICC with sanctions - just like Trump did about 4 years ago with that Afghanistan case
We will make sanctioning ICC our top priority
The whole thing gets weird because US politicians loved ICC when it went after Vladimir Putin for Ukraine stuff; but now theyre super-mad about Israel case. Its like they cant make up their minds
Things got extra-messy when reports came out saying Khan did some not-cool stuff to a female co-worker. The internal watchdog (they call it IOM) didnt do much about it - the lady didnt want to make it official
- ICC has rules about good behavior
- They say they dont allow any bad stuff at work
- Theres supposed to be some outside people checking things
- Nobody really trusts the inside complaint system
Now ICC needs outside help to check whats going on; its super-important because some people think the whole thing is just to mess with the Israel case. The court has other problems too - like cyber-attacks and spies watching their staff
The court boss said theyll get outside help to look into everything. Khan says he didnt do anything wrong but maybe should let his deputies run things for now. Meanwhile all the regular ICC work needs to keep going - theres lots of cases besides Israel that need attention
