Rubio Sanctions the ICC as Pillay Wins Nobel

Hours After Former ICC Judge Navi Pillay Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, Marco Rubio Sanctions the International Criminal Court Itself — "Either the ICC Will End Its Threats, or We Will End the ICC" — and Trump Calls Her Prize "an Indelible Stain on Norway"

October 10, 2026

On Oct. 9, 2026, hours after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to South African jurist Navanethem "Navi" Pillay — a former judge of the International Criminal Court and former U.N. human rights chief — Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced full blocking sanctions on the ICC as an institution, the first time the United States has targeted the court itself rather than individual judges and prosecutors. Treasury added the court to its Specially Designated Nationals list, freezing ICC assets under U.S. jurisdiction and barring Americans and U.S. businesses from transacting with it, with a six-month wind-down period that Rubio said was meant to let member states negotiate a solution. Rubio said the court wanted to prosecute Americans, including Border Patrol agents, and called on allies who rely on the U.S. military to "rein in" the court. The ICC said it "firmly rejects" the sanctions and called them "an assault on the rule of law," and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called them a "serious blow." In a late-night Truth Social post after his Syracuse rally and again at the rally and the next morning, Trump said the United States, "represented by me," should have won the prize, that "nobody has ever heard of" Pillay, who he said "very obviously, hates Israel," and that the award was "an indelible stain on Norway." No members of Congress had issued statements on the sanctions at the time of seeding.