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Comment by buran77 | Hacker News Reader

> The Italian bank says A/I’s account showed no previous anti-money-laundering concerns—but fears U.S. secondary sanctions could endanger services for 130,000 customers and members.

> Banca Etica strongly condemns the use of counterterrorism tools to target political opponents. Evaluations are underway to prevent the closure of the bank account following A/I's inclusion on the US list of terrorist organizations.

This isn't the usual debanking as a political statement, but rather the bank trying not to be sanctioned by the US, a country already bleeding all its soft power and veering heavily into hard power and coercion.

The sanctioning of the ICC prosecutor already showed beyond any doubt the level of moral bankruptcy. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

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The ICC has tools for countering this kind of thing though.

They can order anyone who impedes them seized and handed over for judgement to the ICC, including bank CEOs and the like participating in retaliatory measures against them. They haven't done this, presumably for political reasons, but they can.

Sources? When I look at the law and their mandate, it sure looks like they can't. That's not part of their soft powers. They can excusively go after a very narrow band of criminal acts.

"Article 70 - Offences against the administration of justice

Offences against the administration of justice

[...]

(c) Corruptly influencing a witness, obstructing or interfering with the attendance or testimony of a witness, retaliating against a witness for giving testimony or destroying, tampering with or interfering with the collection of evidence;

(d) Impeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform, or to perform improperly, his or her duties;

(e) Retaliating against an official of the Court on account of duties performed by that or another official;"

So I'd say 70 (e) covers the sanctions imposed on those court officials. They are clearly officials of the court, and the sanctions are clearly part of retaliation against them. Consequently it stands to reason that anyone who participates in their enforcement or drafting or really in any way can in principle be prosecuted.

> The ICC has tools for countering this kind of thing though.

That's irrelevant and unrealistic in this case. None of this factored into the US reaching for the sanctions hammer with more and more despicable intentions, like supporting war crimes even of other countries.

They haven't done it because their power would collapse if they try to do something and be ineffective at it.

It would be good if they could, but the U.S. never consented to the court's authority, and the U.S. government maintains that the ICC has no jurisdiction over American citizens or personnel. We are living a multi-tier world, where there are entities that can be held accountable, and others not so.

Not only this, the US maintains a credible standing commitment to invade any country that arrests one of its operatives for human rights violations.

Well, that is not the court's position, or the position of any of the signatories the Rome Statute.

They don't need to go after Americans. They could go after the head of their bank in Belgium, or wherever, for not providing service.

Anyone can order anyone to do anything. What matters is whether you have the power to enforce it. If a court in my country orders me to do something and I do not I will be fined or imprisoned. What can the ICC do? Countries are not going to arrest bank CEOs for something they are forced to do by the US.

Anyone from a nation that signed the Statute of Rome. Guess what, USA not only hasn't joined the ICJ but has historical laws in place that will make them intervene even with military force to free a US citizen in the hands of the ICJ.

*ICC(International Criminal Court aka Hague established 1998/2002) not the ICJ(International Court of Justice aka World Court established 1946) they are different entities , hence the Hague Invasion Act from the US.

That isn't how the Statute of Rome works. The Statute of Rome applies to things done on the territory of signatories.

So if a US person has operated in the territory of a signatory, and committed something suspected to be a covered crime, and there is no US attempt to prosecute them, they can be prosecuted.

The US militarily can't intervene. They don't have the capacity to fight the Dutch, or French or the like, and the political cost of attacking other NATO countries is of course enormous-- it would be the end of the US as a superpower and lead to an actual EU-US war which would probably last for decades. There's a reason the US Servicemen Protection Act has an out, that it doesn't require any action. Think of it, not as a real policy, but as a dog making sure there's a fence between it and another dog before it starts barking.

> The sanctioning of the

An informative note: Banca Etica did protest against that.

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