Why is the Trump administration trying to dismantle the ICC?

The US has imposed sweeping new sanctions on the International Criminal Court.

Washington’s sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) came hours after one of its former judges, Navi Pillay, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The ICC was founded in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

It has issued arrest warrants against more than 70 people, including Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The US has denounced the court in the past, especially after it issued the arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

Washington has previously imposed sanctions on its prosecutors and judges, but the latest move seeks to cripple the operations of the court, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Why is the US so against the ICC? And will Europe defy Washington and defend the court?

Reed Brody – International human rights lawyer and member of the International Commission of Jurists, who participated in the 1998 Rome conference that created the ICC and has helped prosecute some of the world’s high-profile defendants

Nathalie Tocci – Professor of practice at Johns Hopkins SAIS Europe and a former special adviser to EU High Representatives Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell

Suhail Khan – Republican political analyst, former senior political appointee with the Bush administration and a former policy adviser and counsel on Capitol Hill

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