Thread

ICC judge on what U.S. sanctions mean for her and global courts

229 points · 173 comments · rbanffy

msdz · 1790961668 · focus · HN ↗
Regardless of what one personally thinks about the ICC, this isn’t a good look for neither the US nor Europe.
For the U.S., because sanctioning an “unpleasant”, but in essence harmless individual (geopolitically speaking) is ridiculous. Falling victim to de-banking alone can really ruin one’s life.
And for the EU, because it once again showcases the dependence on U.S. systems for just about anything tech-related in everyday life and work.
1. wereHamster · 1790962253 · focus · HN ↗
  EU is not necessarily dependent on the US in all the cases that are listed in the article. Take AXA, the insurance company. They could probably survive doing business just in the EU and withdraw entirely out of the US market. But for them it's more lucrative to piss off one judge rather than lose the US share of profits. As the article describes, it's a business decision. But not one that necessarily means life or death (for the company).
  1. QDwQ1 · 1790962937 · focus · HN ↗
    EU politicians should grow some balls and force their companies to ignore US sanctions in cases like these
    msdz · 1790963113 · focus · HN ↗
    I’ve read that at least in the case of some EU banks, not following the foreign sanctions is quite literally not an option for them.
    If you don’t follow sanctions, other banks either with branches doing business in the U.S., or their partner banks, will refuse to continue banking with you out of fear for not following sanctions – which include banks enabling sanction-circumvention. Essentially, even if the bank doesn’t want to deal with USD (which most banks would still like to do!), you’re still bound by the sanctions. A bank won’t survive long or well if it’s cut off from a majority of other banks.
    RobotToaster · 1790964127 · focus · HN ↗
    Which is why it would need to be a law. The only option would be for the US to take the insane move of cutting off every bank in Europe. If they did actually do that, while it would be painful in the short term, it would be incredibly beneficial for Europe in the long term.
    cherryteastain · 1790964251 · focus · HN ↗
    This is just a case of carrot vs stick. European countries need to threaten their companies with an even bigger stick if they follow foreign sanctions.
    China does this via laws that say, if you do not provide services to Chinese citizens/entities citing foreign sanctions, they can send you to a gulag forever. Seems to be fairly effective, considering how heavily sanctioned Huawei is.
    jorvi · 1790964900 · focus · HN ↗
    This is why WERO and the digital Euro are so crucial. Once the EU has a separate financial backbone, they can tell the US to go pound sand.
    deaux · 1790964901 · focus · HN ↗
    After the last 2 years you _still_ haven't learnt that _everything_ like this is completely negotiable and can change tomorrow? That it's all might makes right? God, you must've been one of those people who in 2014 claimed it was unthinkable that a country would leave the EU, or took Trump's threats as fact even after his 20th TACO turn.
    All these hard "immediate consequences" scenarios are pure fiction. Not because they can't become truth, they can. But there's a hundred other possibilities. Literally sticking to the "letter of the law" is just one of them, and not a particularly likely one.
    HDThoreaun · 1790965356 · focus · HN ↗
    Chinese banks dont enforce american sanctions and it certainly hasnt ruined their banking system.
    beached_whale · 1790963871 · focus · HN ↗
    Canada did this for the Cuba sanctions years ago. There was/is a semi famous story about Walmart Canada and Cuban PJ's.
  2. abdullahkhalids · 1790963181 · focus · HN ↗
    My understanding from glancing at the hopefully correct sanctions statement [1] is that they are secondary in nature (see for example Sec 3). So the insurance company will face all the same sanctions that the ICC judge is facing if they serve them. They banks will cutoff the insurance company as well, because the banks themselves use US infrastructure.
    The only solution would be similar to what China exercised. The EU passes an order telling all EU entities to not comply with US sanctions or face legal problems. Then it comes down to how the US responds and whether EU can take that hit.
    [1] <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/imposing-sanctions-on-the-international-criminal-court/" rel="nofollow">https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo...
    RobotToaster · 1790964233 · focus · HN ↗
    > The only solution would be similar to what China exercised. The EU passes an order telling all EU entities to not comply with US sanctions or face legal problems
    Unfortunately, the fact that they haven't done this just makes the EU look like a paper tiger.
    microtonal · 1790965881 · focus · HN ↗
    The EU does not work like Trump, resolving issues through diplomacy is always the preferred first option. Trump also backed down from his Greenland threats after the EU messaged that it might employ the trade bazooka and some EU countries sent some army personnel to Greenland.
    They could have immediately activated the trade bazooka when Trump was threatening Greenland, but the slower diplomatic approach also worked and led to far less damage on both sides.
    laimewhisps · 1790966709 · focus · HN ↗
    Maybe for most things but the EU and Trump are both fully aligned on their Israel policy, which is what the ICC sanctions are about. You will not see the EU disagree with him here.
    nostrademons · 1790964994 · focus · HN ↗
    There's another possible outcome as well: commerce moves to the black market, which eventually inverts the traditional national sovereignty relationship such that people learn that if they want to get anything done safely, they do it over encrypted communication channels with cryptocurrencies, and eventually the rump states of "official" governments are seen as cosplayers fighting over a pageant that people pay lip service to but don't rely on anymore.
    The effect of these transitive sanctions is to create trading blocks. If you want to do business with the U.S, you don't do business with sanctioned entities. If other world powers (like China or the EU) want to negate the power of U.S. sanctions, they pass laws that people in their countries must not comply with U.S. sanctions or risk being sanctioned themselves. Now firms are stuck: if they comply with one set of sanctions they are in violation of another, and vice versa, and so it becomes impossible to comply with all of them. Their two options are: 1) comply with their local, national trading bloc and forego the benefits of globalization and trade or 2) become an outlaw, get the benefits of trade, but risk the ire of national authorities.
    #2 seems rather unthinkable right now, coming off the Pax Americana, but it was actually quite common during historical periods like the one we're headed into. That's the choice made by pirates during the 1600s; by American colonists in the 1770s; oftentimes by frontier settlers in ~1860s America; and by numerous non-state nations like Jews or Gypsies throughout history. Plus, the Internet and cryptocurrencies and VPNs and Tor and residential proxies all exist. The technology is there for a market state that crosses national boundaries, and the social conditions are building.
    Notice I said "outcome" rather than "solution", as I think people can see many things wrong with this. You'll kinda get whatever emerges, which probably is not an improvement on what we had from 1990-2020.
    microtonal · 1790965686 · focus · HN ↗
    The only solution would be similar to what China exercised. The EU passes an order telling all EU entities to not comply with US sanctions or face legal problems.
    There are strong calls from the EP now for the EC to prepare the blocking statute:
    <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/block-us-sanctions-on-the-icc-eu-lawmakers-tell-commission/" rel="nofollow">https://www.politico.eu/article/block-us-sanctions-on-the-ic...
    <a href="https://finance.ec.europa.eu/eu-and-world/open-strategic-autonomy/extraterritoriality-blocking-statute_en" rel="nofollow">https://finance.ec.europa.eu/eu-and-world/open-strategic-aut...

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