The International Criminal Court in The Hague on Sept. 23. Remko de Waal/ANP/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Remko de Waal/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
If you desire to see how far U.S. sanctions can reach, ask Kimberly Prost's Alexa.
After the United States sanctioned her, the Canadian fairness at the International Criminal Court began losing admission to services from companies in distinct countries. Her credit cards were additionally canceled.
"You commencement to endure services from American companies, Amazon, Google, possibly Apple, any it may be," she told Morning Edition. "Completely randomly, though, you don't cognize whenever something's going to happen."
One of those moments came during an average instant at home.
"I went residence and Alexa wouldn't conversation to me," she told NPR's Steve Inskeep.
Her credit cards, issued in the Netherlands and Canada, were canceled. She has managed to keep several financial institution accounts, but says her banking services are extremely constricted and equal small transfers can be blocked.
The sanctions themselves are American. Still, businesses abroad may comply since they have ties to the U.S.
"We have this enormous overcompliance by companies," she said.
One of the most grave examples is her health insurance. Prost receives safety through AXA, the French business that provides coverage for the court. She says the business has refused to pay her claims equal although it is not legally required to prosecute the U.S. sanctions.
"It's a endeavor decision," she said.
Her phone motionless plant — "so far" — but several email, haze and another innovation services are limited.
She has lived alongside the restrictions for additional than a year.
Why was she sanctioned?
Prost stated her authorization stems from Trump's administrator command targeting ICC officials engaged in cases concerning Israel and Gaza or Afghanistan.
Her own case goes rear six years.
At the time, Prost was temporarily serving on the ICC's Appeals Chamber whenever prosecutors sought authority to open an inquiry into alleged crimes connected to the war in Afghanistan. Prost and four another judges unanimously approved the request.
The inquiry covered alleged crimes involving the Taliban and ISIS and included what Prost described as "a small component connected to the United States."
That U.S. component was never pursued and was afterward deprioritized by prosecutors, she said.
"And it is for that decision that I'm sanctioned," Prost said.
Her function was judicial, not investigative. She stated the appeals judges were required to decide whether prosecutors had the appropriate lawful basis and jurisdiction to continue — similar, she said, to a fairness authorizing a hunt warrant.
"There is no inquiry connected to the American component in Afghanistan, and I have nothing to do alongside the Israel-Gaza situation," Prost said.
Her heading came amid a much wider confrontation between Washington and the ICC that intensified following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
For Prost, the broader involvement is what sanctions akin these average for judges on global courts making decisions from the bench.
"We are judges, and we are being told that fairly than deciding our cases on the basis of the facts and the law before us, as we are duty border to do, we're being asked to decide the cases or not decide them in accordance alongside the wishes of the U.S. government," she said.
By August 2026, nine of the court's 18 judges were under U.S. sanctions, alongside alongside the two delegate prosecutors, its erstwhile attorney and one personnel member.
The Trump administration has threatened to go further, announcing what it called a "whole-of-government campaign" to "systematically dismantle" the ICC complete its investigations involving Americans and Israelis.
NPR reached out to the State Department for additional data concerning whether and whenever the administration plans to enforce additional sanctions on the court. The division did not respond.
Prost is challenging the authorization in U.S. court. In June, she and chap ICC judges Reine Alapini-Gansou and Solomy Balungi Bossa sued President Trump and another administration officials in national court in New York, arguing that the measures were unlawful.
The activity goes on in The Hague
For now, the sanctions have changed how she lives exterior the courtroom, but not the activity she continues to do inner it.
Her current case involves alleged crimes tied to the jihadist takeover of Timbuktu in Mali, including persecution, torture and inhumane treatment.
"I volition never discontinue my job as a judge," Prost said. "These methods that they're using, these coercive measures, are entirely futile."
She stated she and another sanctioned judges and prosecutors continue to do their jobs "objectively, independently and in accordance alongside the oath that we've taken."
The broadcast discussion was produced by Ava Pukatch, and the web type was edited by Treye Green.
