Targeted by Trump, International Criminal Court wins top EU rights prize

The EU's Sakharov Prize has been awarded to the International Criminal Court. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said it's in recognition of the important work the ICC does in upholding international law and justice. The ICC has notably outstanding arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu. Europe's leading prize then for upholding human rights has been awarded to a body that's been sanctioned by the United States, Another EU decision that most likely will not be approved of by Donald Trump. It's Catherine Biette. A show of support for the International Criminal Court as the European Union awards it the 2026 Sakharov Prize, which honors human rights work. The European Union is built on respect for multilateralism and international institutions. And this prize recognizes the important work of the court in upholding international law and justice. This is the second international recognition for the War Crimes Tribunal after former ICC Judge Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Her win, widely seen as a show of support for the embattled court. The Hague-based body has long been in the crosshairs of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has vowed to dismantle the court brick by brick. He's furious over the fact the judges issued an arrest warrant for Israel's prime minister and his former defense minister for alleged war crimes in Gaza. In the last two weeks, the Trump administration announced sweeping sanctions against the court aimed at crippling its day-to-day operations. In a statement, the president of the ICC thanked the European Parliament for the honor. Against this backdrop, the Sakharov Prize carries particular significance, reaffirming the importance of independent judicial institutions and of those who work to uphold international law. The ICC opened in 2002 as a court of last resort to try crimes so deeply shocking to humanity's conscience, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Its tribunal has overseen 34 cases with 15 convictions, four acquittals, and several trials that are still ongoing. let's get more on this and welcome Doug Herbert our international affairs commentator they're great to see as always the president of the ICC uh Tomoko Akane we saw her words there in captain's report says this comes at a time of unprecedented challenges tell us what you mean uh everything everywhere all at once hitting this court right so you've had Donald Trump since his first term has been taking aim at this court using it as a punching bag he started by you know sanctioning individual judges. But, you know, more recently, October 9th, sweeping sanctions, right? We just heard in that report, hours after a former ICC judge gets the Nobel Peace Prize, a peace prize that Donald Trump thinks he should have gotten this year and last year, but didn't. Hours after that, sweeping sanctions imposed now on anyone who does business with the court, right? It's not just people on the court, but you do business with that court, forget it. You're going to be targeted by sanctions. This isn't just Trump. His entire administration has explicitly stated, right, that it is going to, that its goal is to dismantle, this is Marco Rubio's word, Secretary of State, dismantle the ICC brick by brick. Either the ICC will end its threats, he said, or we will end the ICC. You don't get that much more explicit than that. So when, yeah, when the president of the ICC that we heard in that report talks about formidable, unprecedented challenges, she ain't kidding. Let's remember that, yeah, The court has issued arrest warrants initially for against Vladimir Putin. We heard Catherine Viet reporting on that. That was for allegations that Putin has essentially kidnapped, deported Ukrainian children to Russia, reeducated them, whatever word you want to use. That was in 2023. 2024, we've had the arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu. Yeah, the hits keep coming. And also the court itself has long been the target of these accusations that it's biased. Originally early on biased against African states because it seems a lot of the cases were heavily weighted against African dictators, autocrats. So you had countries recently like Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, all in the African Sahel, basically withdrawing from the court. And more recently, you had Chad and Venezuela joining them, withdrawing from the court. So when I say the hits just keep on coming, it's a court that has faced enormous pressure almost wherever you look at a time when you could say international law isn't too popular. A socialist lawmaker in the European Parliament that we just saw the pictures of there said that this is a victory for international justice and a defeat for autocrats. And another one said that this is a message of hope and resistance to Donald Trump. Doug, 125 member signatories. What was it set up to do? And you mentioned it's always been criticized. I suppose that's because it's raising questions of bodies and countries and people who don't like to answer questions. Yeah. There used to be a commentator in the U.S. guy named Keith Oberman. He had a little segment on his show called The World's Worst Person of the Week. And it sort of reminds me of what the mission of the International Criminal Court is, Mark, because it was set up, it was created originally by something called the Rome Statute, a treaty, an international treaty. And its mission was literally to go after people accused of the world's worst crimes and atrocities. So we heard it, right? Catherine reported it there. War crimes, crimes against humanity. They added later crimes of aggression, perhaps a nod to Russia's invasion, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. And then the big one, obviously, genocide, the world's worst crimes perpetrated by the world's worst people. And like I said, it was accused early on of being heavily tilted against Africa. But the fact that more recently it's issued arrest warrants against Putin and Netanyahu shows that it is not that African bias. It is, if anything, corrected if ever there was a real African bias, which the court would deny there was. The thing is, from Donald Trump's perspective, what this court was created to do, which basically is to uphold. I mean, it sounds a little bit sort of, you know, wishy washy. Some people would say woke-ish to uphold these notions of international justice, accountability, multilateral institutions on a world stage being able to, yeah, across borders, supranational, as you call it, be able to hold people to account in countries that aren't willing to hold their own leaders to account. You might say it sounds fanciful in this day and age, but when it was formed, it was seen as a very good idea. And there are some people, including the European Parliament, who still see it as a good idea. What can the ICC do, though, is some of the biggest powers and perhaps one might say biggest offenders, but that's obviously to be judged by a higher court than our court here. But I'm thinking of the likes of the USA, Russia, China. If they want to destroy it, they don't want to be part of it. They'd like to, as you say, dismantle it brick by brick. What can the ICC do? Well, it could continue doing its work. It could be defiant. It has 125 signatories. There are a lot of members who never ratified the treaty. There are some who did sign it and then withdrew from it. Um, you know, what's interesting here is it can't really do much against the U S sanctions. It is formidable, right? If you're deprived of money and people are scared to do business with you because they don't want to rub the U S the wrong way, you know, Trump still has a lot of influence and a lot of people we've seen how beholden a lot of leaders and groveling they can become when, when they want to avoid the wrath of Trump. So you can't just dismiss the fact that Trump is, uh, is, uh, is, uh, imposing these sweeping these sanctions on the court. It's going to have a chilling effect. Vladimir Putin, his response to a lot of the court's actions, especially against him, he's criminalized the court in the sense of he has gone after. Russia has sought to criminalize a lot of judges on the court, suggests they're the ones who are criminals, not Vladimir Putin. So these powers, yeah, their weight means a lot. And the court is really up against it. It's unpopular at a time in the world where right now you could say autocrats, those who aren't much for international justice and accountability, especially by foreigners telling them they should be held accountable. It's hard to right now sort of go against those currents. But the court has been very clear that's its mission. It's going to continue doing so. And it's not going to let itself be thwarted, even by a U.S. that says that its very intention right now is to target that court and to make sure it is unable to carry out its function as designed. The EU's Sakharov Prize for Upholding Human Rights, designated the International Criminal Court. Douglas Herbert, our international affairs commentator with the analysis. Doug, as always, thank you very much indeed.