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Julian Ryall

Japan has spent years casting the International Criminal Court as a pillar of the rules-based order. This week, its closest ally sanctioned the Japanese judge who leads it.
The move has left Tokyo in an uncomfortable bind: defend Tomoko Akane, the Japanese president of The Hague-based court, and risk antagonising US leader Donald Trump, or temper its criticism and appear weak in the face of an attack on an institution central to Japan’s rule-of-law diplomacy.
Washington’s sanctions, announced on Tuesday, drew condemnation from the European Union, several European governments and human rights groups, while a spokesman for United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “seriously concerned”.
The Japanese government was more circumspect. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Wednesday described the sanctions as “deeply regrettable” and vowed to “continue to communicate closely with the United States and other countries involved”.
A Foreign Ministry statement issued the same day said, “Japan has consistently supported the ICC, which is a permanent international criminal court, in its efforts to prosecute and punish the most serious crimes of concern to the international community and to uphold the rule of law. From this standpoint, the announced measures are very unfortunate.”
Japan “will remain committed to strengthening the rule of law in the international community”, the statement added.

Japan’s restrained language masked deeper concern in Tokyo, analysts said, as the sanctions targeted an institution it had long supported but were imposed by the ally it depended on most for security.
“Japan knows it has to tread extremely lightly because it knows Trump can be vindictive, nasty and petty and it is very concerned about China, Russia and North Korea all cosying up,” Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at the Tokyo branch of Temple University, said.
“Japan is very vulnerable and very dependent on the US security umbrella, and it cannot do anything that might threaten that, such as calling Trump out on another assault on international society.”
For Tokyo, the risk is that angering Washington over the court could carry costs in the very security relationship Japan considers essential for deterring threats closer to home.
Kingston said the consequences of resisting this US administration were clear, pointing to Trump’s announcement this week that he had ordered bilateral military exercises with South Korea to be dramatically scaled back, in part because Seoul had not adequately supported his military action against Iran.
Behind the scenes, however, Japan would be angry that a “core pillar of its international relations efforts” and attempts to encourage governments to adhere to existing international law had been undermined, Kingston added.
The US ramped up efforts to diminish the ICC last year, imposing sanctions on several prosecutors and judges after the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence chief Yoav Gallant for actions in Gaza, as well as an earlier investigation into US troops in Afghanistan.
The sanctions froze the court officials’ assets in the US and effectively shut them out of the US financial system, to which most international banks are closely connected.

Washington’s decision to target Akane and another ICC official came a week after a coalition of human rights groups filed a lawsuit in New York challenging the US government’s sanctions against ICC prosecutors and judges.
Human Rights Watch, the American Friends Service Committee, the Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Open Society Institute argued in their August 11 complaint that the ICC was created to safeguard international law and seek justice for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
In a statement, the groups said, “The sanctions regime, and the executive order on which it is based, undermines access to justice for victims of serious international crimes around the globe and prevents civil society from working together to combat impunity.”
The complaint described the sanctions as “a blatantly illegal attack on international justice and should be struck down”.
The sanctions “infringe their constitutional rights to free speech, association and religion, and violate US law and US obligations under international law”, the groups said.
A week later, Washington hit Akane and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye with sanctions, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declaring the ICC a “corrupt and fatally politicised supranational court”.
Kanae Doi, director of the Japan office of Human Rights Watch, called the US decision to sanction Akane and other ICC officials “an affront to victims around the world” and a “naked attempt” to shield American and Israeli officials implicated in serious crimes from justice.
“The Japanese government should build on its long-standing support for the ICC by strongly condemning the Trump administration’s attacks on the court and work with other ICC member countries to protect the court’s critical global mandate,” she said in a statement to This Week in Asia.
Kingston said, however, that Japan was unlikely to go much further than the protest it had already registered.
“There is not a lot that Tokyo can do because of the need to safeguard the security alliance. To speak out would be a risk and the government here has seen how Trump has just kneecapped Seoul by withdrawing from military exercises,” he said.
“Takaichi can complain, of course, but Trump has her over a barrel because of the increasingly risky environment in northeast Asia. For Japan, this is the nightmare scenario; its enemies are gathering and its ally is back-stabbing.”


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Japan faces ‘nightmare scenario’ as it struggles to defend ICC judge

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has described the sanctions on ICC president Tomoko Akane as “deeply regrettable”. Photo: Kyodo

Tomoko Akane, president of the International Criminal Court. Photo: Kyodo

The International Criminal Court in The Hague. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called the ICC a “corrupt and fatally politicised supranational court”. Photo: AFP

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Tokyo has to tread ‘extremely lightly’ on the issue to avoid jeopardising the US security umbrella on which it relies, analysts say


Tokyo has to tread ‘extremely lightly’ on the issue to avoid jeopardising the US security umbrella on which it relies, analysts say.


Japan faces ‘nightmare scenario’ as it struggles to defend ICC judge

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Tokyo has to tread ‘extremely lightly’ on the issue to avoid jeopardising the US security umbrella on which it relies, analysts say

Tokyo has to tread ‘extremely lightly’ on the issue to avoid jeopardising the US security umbrella on which it relies, analysts say