European Parliament gives Sakharov Prize to ICC two weeks after US sanctions on the court

The European Parliament on Thursday awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Union’s highest human rights honour, to the International Criminal Court and its officials, less than two weeks after the Trump administration placed the court under sanctions.

The decision was announced at the parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg. The prize, created in 1988, has gone in the past to Nelson Mandela and Alexei Navalny. It will be presented at a ceremony in Strasbourg in December.

Washington announced sanctions on the court as an institution on 9 October, with measures that also reach its judges, prosecutors and staff. The United States has repeatedly attacked the court over its arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its investigation into the conduct of American troops in Afghanistan.

“A message of hope and resistance”

The court was nominated by the Socialists and Democrats group. Chloé Ridel, the French MEP who put its name forward, framed the award as an answer to Washington.

“This is a message of hope and resistance sent to Donald Trump,” she said. “We will not abandon the rule of law and international justice. We will stand with the ICC for as long as it takes.”

Iratxe García Pérez, who leads the Socialists in the parliament, called it “a victory for international justice, a defeat for autocrats, and a powerful reminder that accountability matters”. Her group’s vice-president, Yannis Maniatis, said the award showed that no one is above the law.

How the vote fell

The outcome was not certain. The court was backed by the Socialists, the liberal Renew Europe group, the Greens and the Left. The centre-right European People’s Party and the conservative ECR group backed Tundu Lissu, the Tanzanian opposition lawyer who faces political persecution at home, and some insiders had expected him to win.

The third finalists were Taraneh and Romina Rahimi, Iranian sisters nominated on behalf of people persecuted by Iran’s authorities, a candidacy pushed by Kinga Gál, co-leader of the Patriots for Europe group. When neither leading candidate reached the majority needed, which would have forced a runoff between Lissu and the court, Gál’s group abstained and the court won with a relative majority.

Pressure on Brussels to act

The award adds weight to calls for the EU to protect the court. “The next step is clear: activate the Blocking Statute,” García Pérez said, referring to the EU law meant to shield European companies and people from the effect of foreign sanctions.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, called the US sanctions threat “not acceptable” on 9 October, and MEPs last week urged Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to use “all instruments at our disposal”. The EU has not yet taken concrete action.

The prize comes in the same month that the Nobel Peace Prize went to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, the South African jurist who served as a judge of the court from 2003 to 2008.