The International Criminal Court is facing one of the most consequential crises in its 24-year history, following the unprecedented removal of former chief prosecutor Karim Khan after a sexual-misconduct case that coincided with his pursuit of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes. The prosecution was followed by an escalating US campaign against the institution, with a fresh round of sanctions targeting senior court officials intensifying pressure on The Hague and confronting the ICC with a powerful external challenge to its leadership and judicial independence.
On 21 November 2024, following an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two senior Israeli officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, alleging responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity including murder, persecution and other inhumane acts during the Gaza war. The warrant against Netanyahu was the first issued by the ICC against the leader of a Western-backed democratic country for alleged war crimes. ICC member states are required under the Rome Statute to comply with the court’s arrest warrants. It has been alleged that an additional arrest warrant for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was requested on 2 April 2026 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, although the report has not been officially confirmed. Warrants could also be sought against additional senior Israeli military officers involved in the Gaza war, an action recommended by a United Nations Commission of Inquiry.
Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan publicly applied for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant in May 2024. Khan, who had served as ICC prosecutor since 2021, was subsequently accused of forcing himself on a female assistant in a New York hotel room in December 2023, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The incident was investigated as part of an alleged pattern of inappropriate touching, harassment and forced intercourse. The assistant, a Malaysian lawyer in her 30s, alleged in May 2024 that Khan forced her into sexual intercourse against her will during missions in New York, Colombia, Congo, Chad and Paris, as well as at his residence in The Hague. Khan has consistently denied committing sexual misconduct or sexual violence. The court’s internal watchdog interviewed the woman but closed its initial inquiry after five days when she declined to make a formal complaint. She was reported to have expressed concern about retaliation and the handling of the process.
As the investigation progressed and further details of the allegations emerged, Khan announced in May 2025 that he would take leave until the process was completed. It was the first time an ICC prosecutor had stepped aside under such circumstances. Deputy prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang assumed responsibility for running the Office of the Prosecutor.
By then, another pressure campaign was developing outside the court.
After returning to office, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on February 6, 2025, authorising sanctions against ICC personnel involved in investigations of US nationals or nationals of allied countries that had not accepted the court’s jurisdiction. Khan was formally added to the US sanctions list on February 13.
Washington said the ICC had overstepped its authority by pursuing Netanyahu and Gallant.
The court maintained that its Palestine jurisdiction derived from Palestine’s accession to the Rome Statute and therefore extended to alleged crimes committed on Palestinian territory irrespective of an accused person’s nationality. Israel and the US are not ICC members.
In June 2026, Reuters reported that the bureau investigating Khan had determined that he had engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a junior employee and recommended his dismissal. Khan disputed the findings and the fairness of the proceedings. The matter culminated on July 24, 2026, when the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties held a special session. By 82 votes, member governments found that Khan had committed “serious misconduct and serious breach of duty” and removed him under Article 46 of the Rome Statute. It was the first time an ICC prosecutor had been dismissed from office. Khan continued to deny the allegations and argued that the proceedings had denied him due process. His lawyers also maintained that the political attacks surrounding the ICC had contaminated the environment in which his case was decided. The Assembly, however, expressly separated its disciplinary ruling from Khan’s prosecutorial decisions, stressing that his removal was not connected to particular investigations or cases.
His dismissal also did not cancel the arrest warrants already authorised by ICC judges. Warrants are judicial orders and remain in force unless the judges themselves modify or withdraw them.
Deputy prosecutors Shameem Khan and Niang have continued to lead the prosecution office pending the selection of a successor.
Washington widens the fight
Khan’s departure did little to ease the broader conflict between Washington and The Hague.
The Trump administration instead expanded its campaign against the institution itself, sanctioning judges and other court personnel and arguing that the ICC has no legitimate authority over citizens of countries that have not joined the Rome Statute.
On August 18, 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against ICC President Tomoko Akane and Abdoulaye Seye, a senior lawyer in the prosecutor’s office.
The measures freeze any assets within US jurisdiction and largely exclude the targeted officials from the US financial system. Rubio accused the ICC of attempting to prosecute officials from countries that had not consented to its jurisdiction and described the institution as politically motivated.
The ICC responded that the sanctions represented a serious attack on judicial independence and warned that targeting judges and prosecutors for carrying out their legal duties threatened the wider international legal system.
Washington has signalled that the pressure could go further. US officials have discussed using additional sanctions, visa restrictions and diplomatic pressure on governments cooperating with the court, while Rubio has urged member states to reconsider their participation in the Rome Statute framework.
Europe closes ranks around the court
The escalation has increasingly exposed a transatlantic divide over the ICC.
On August 19, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa publicly backed the court, saying its judges and officials must be able to perform their functions without external pressure. Germany and the Netherlands also criticised Washington’s latest action.
Japan, whose national Tomoko Akane serves as ICC president, described the US sanctions as “very unfortunate”, while UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed serious concern.
Some European politicians have called for the EU to consider stronger protections for individuals and companies affected by American sanctions, including possible use of mechanisms designed to shield European entities from extraterritorial US measures.
The European position nevertheless contains its own tension. All 27 EU countries are ICC members and publicly support the court, yet European governments have differed over how they would respond in practice to the Netanyahu warrant.
The Challenges to the ICC and the Global Legal Order
The ICC therefore enters the second half of 2026 confronting a challenge that extends beyond the future of the court itself: whether an international legal order established to pursue accountability for the gravest crimes can apply its principles consistently when confronted by pressure from powerful states.
Khan’s dismissal has placed an institution created to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes under scrutiny over both its internal governance and its ability to stand by judicial decisions already taken. At the same time, external pressure could prove more consequential for the court’s long-term capacity to operate. US sanctions can affect banking, travel, technology services and dealings with organisations dependent on American financial infrastructure, creating practical constraints that extend well beyond the individuals formally designated.
The broader test is therefore not simply whether the ICC can withstand the present confrontation, but whether the international system can sustain the principle that international law and accountability apply irrespective of political power, nationality or alliance.
In memory of those who lost their lives, and of the stories lost with them
Yet behind the institutional and diplomatic confrontation lies the human cost of the conflict at the centre of the court’s Palestine cases.
The World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office recently paid tribute to Dr Ahmad Al-Sahhar, a 28-year-old Palestinian paediatrician who continued working at Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza despite the escalating conflict. Al-Sahhar had dreamed of becoming a doctor since childhood and hoped to devote his career to treating children in Gaza. When his family evacuated south, his elder brother urged him to leave with them, but he chose to remain at the hospital, telling him: “I can’t leave my work. People need me.” According to his family, his decision was driven not by a desire for recognition but by his professional duty and commitment to patients who continued to depend on medical care. His brother embraced him before leaving, not knowing it would be their final goodbye.
On 21 November 2023, Ahmad made a final call to his brother and said that a room next to where he and his colleagues were staying had been hit. Minutes later, Ahmad’s room was struck. He was killed at Al-Awda Hospital alongside two colleagues, Dr Ziad Al-Tatari and Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila.
WHO presents Al-Sahhar’s story as a human illustration of the toll the Gaza conflict has taken on health workers, families and the territory’s medical system, while highlighting the determination of healthcare professionals who have continued treating patients under extreme conditions. The release centres on Al-Sahhar’s appeal: “Save what remains of life. We are people who love life. We feel, we dream and we want the chance to live those dreams.”
More than 73,400 Palestinians have been killed and over 174,300 wounded in the Gaza Strip since the conflict began on October 7, 2023, according to reports from the Gaza Health Ministry and international agencies including the United Nations. Thousands more remain missing or trapped under the rubble.
Of the total recorded fatalities in Gaza, women, children and the elderly consistently account for roughly 55% to 56% of violent deaths. According to tracking data from UNICEF, the Gaza Health Ministry and demographic verification studies published in The Lancet, more than 21,500 children have been killed, accounting for about 33% of recorded deaths. More than 12,000 adult women have been killed, representing roughly 18% of recorded fatalities, while more than 3,400 elderly people have been killed, accounting for approximately 8.6% of tracked casualties.
If international legal institutions cannot protect civilians or secure accountability after more than 70,000 lives have been lost, when — and against whom — can they be expected to have force? Can international law still fulfil the purpose for which it was created: to protect human life and hold those accused of the gravest crimes to account, irrespective of their power, nationality or alliances — or does the reach of international justice ultimately end where the interests of powerful states begin? One fundamental question remains: will international law endure as a credible and universally applied global system, or is it increasingly at risk of becoming a system constrained by power and selective enforcement?
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