Top ICC Official Urges EU to Act 'As Soon As Possible' With Clear Guidance on US Sanctions
The International Criminal Court's top administrative official, Osvaldo Zavala Giler, has urged the European Commission to act as soon as possible to give clear guidance on US sanctions against the court. He said a lack of clarity from Brussels was leaving companies and NGOs in the dark over whether they should comply with sanctions decided by Washington, and what risks they face if they do not.
Zavala Giler, who oversees the day-to-day functioning of the Hague-based court as its registrar, told Politico in an interview that his job had become preparing for sanctions as the White House imposed an escalating regime of restrictions against the institution.
The Trump administration first targeted prosecutors and judges from the court in February 2025, before announcing blanket sanctions on the whole court on October 9 this year. The EU has repeatedly backed the court against Washington, but it has resisted calls to activate a mechanism that would forbid firms from complying with US laws.
That hesitation has agonised senior figures in The Hague. Pressure from EU lawmakers for a swift response has also grown after the October 9 announcement. Kaja Kallas told the European Parliament on Tuesday that Brussels would use the next few months to open dialogue on the issue. The new sanctions are set to take effect in April next year.
Speaking from his glass office on the eve of a visit to the court's headquarters by the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, Zavala Giler said he hoped the space for dialogue would not be interpreted as a space for waiting to protect the court.
Anticipating sweeping sanctions, the court spent six months abandoning US tech providers and moving to an open-source software environment, and 20 months making its financial transactions dollar-proof. That move has been a huge undertaking for Zavala Giler's team, he said.
The court initially deepened its reliance on US technology after it was hit by a massive cyber attack in 2023, but what seemed a solution at that time became a problem in the face of sanctions. Even though the current regime includes a carveout for telecommunications, there is no guarantee it will remain. In his words, it becomes a sort of Damocles sword hanging over the court's head that could be revoked at any time, and he cannot count on US tech companies anymore.
US platforms operate as entire ecosystems offering all-encompassing solutions under a single contract. To do without them, he said, the court has had to create its own architecture and systems that need to speak to each other.
Financial autonomy was equally hard to achieve. The court mapped all its suppliers' transactions to ensure there was no US nexus, meaning no US person, bank or currency is involved in a payment. All staff members were made to have European bank accounts and contracts were put in euros, in a detailed process done person by person and company by company. As a result the court has gone from working with tens of banks to only a few, since only a handful of institutions are comfortable with dollar-proof payments.
That situation is likely to worsen without clear guidance from EU countries and the Commission. As Zavala Giler put it, if the International Criminal Court cannot transact in Europe, in euros within the SEPA zone with no US nexus, then there is a bigger question about European financial sovereignty.
The court has long called on the EU to use a legislative shield known as the blocking statute, which would forbid EU firms from complying with US sanctions. The request was backed by dozens of lawmakers at the European Parliament, which on Thursday also awarded the court its human rights Sakharov Prize.
In Zavala Giler's view, the blocking statute becomes an instrument to reassert the minimum space that should not be affected by unilateral extraterritorial sanctions, and that minimum space should be, at the very least, the eurozone. Even without it, he said, the court needs reassurances that, at least within the eurozone, it can continue to operate. As an intermediate step, he suggested comfort letters reassuring firms that they should not comply with the US measures.
So far, however, the Commission has taken a cautious approach, choosing dialogue with the US as a way of buying time, as one EU diplomat put it. In a balancing act, EU heads of state and government backed Brussels' diplomatic effort at their summit last week, while also committing to do whatever is needed to support the court. Zavala Giler said he hoped that now the European Council has opened this door, the Commission will feel more comfortable taking an extra step and at the very least providing clear guidance.
The registrar stressed that sanctions are not only a matter for banks and tech operators, as the current uncertainty has already affected NGOs working with the court. NGOs play a critical role in supporting the court's work, for instance in providing reparations for victims in Uganda or assistance to victims in Ukraine. He said this has created an enormous chilling effect, as NGOs do not know whether they have legal protections to continue supporting the court.
In one of the buildings of the court's 46,000-square-metre compound, circled by a moat around its six towers, the trial of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte over alleged crimes against humanity is due to begin next month. Overseeing this huge institution is Zavala Giler's job, and a large part of that job is now preparing for sanctions.
