U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sanctioned Gocha Lortkipanidze, the former Georgian justice minister who is serving as a judge at the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), over his involvement in ICC proceedings against Israeli nationals, the U.S. State Department’s statement said on December 18.
According to the statement, Lortkipanidze and another judge, Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia, “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals without Israel’s consent,” including by supporting a majority decision that rejected Israel’s appeal on December 15.
“The ICC has continued to engage in politicized actions targeting Israel, which set a dangerous precedent for all nations,” Rubio said in a statement. “We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject U.S. and Israeli persons to the ICC’s jurisdiction.”
The statement emphasized that neither the United States nor Israel are parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, and therefore rejects the court’s jurisdiction. “We will continue to respond with significant and tangible consequences to the ICC’s lawfare and overreach,” Rubio said.
The sanctions follow ICC probes over alleged war crimes committed by individuals amid the Gaza conflict, including arrest warrants issued last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif.
The two judges were designated pursuant to section 1(a)(ii)(A) of Executive Order (E.O.) 14203, which was issued on February 6, 2025, by Donald Trump and accuses ICC of engaging “in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.” The particular section foresees freezing U.S.-tied assets for those designated to “have directly engaged in any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person without consent of that person’s country of nationality.”
The International Criminal Court responded to the sanctions, calling the move “a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution which operates pursuant to the mandate conferred by its States Parties from across regions.”
“Such measures targeting judges and prosecutors who were elected by the States Parties undermine the rule of law,” the ICC said. “When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk.”
In contrast, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar welcomed the decision, writing under Rubio’s post on X, “Thank you, Secretary Rubio for this moral clear stance.”
Lortkipanidze was elected to the ICC in December 2020 for a nine-year term, becoming the first-ever Georgian judge to serve on the court. Prior to his election, he held several senior positions in Georgia’s justice system. From 2012 to 2020, he served as deputy Justice Minister, and he briefly served as Justice Minister under Giorgi Gakharia’s tenure. From 2005 to 2009, he served as an adviser to the Prime Minister on international law and foreign affairs.
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