By Peter Trankner
A decision has been made in the two-year-old affair surrounding the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague regarding serious misconduct.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has been dismissed following allegations of abuse. According to a press release from the Assembly, a majority of the States Parties to the ICC voted in New York to impeach him. The contracting States cited him for “serious misconduct and a serious breach of his official duties.” The affair, which has been simmering for two years, has severely burdened the court based in The Hague and damaged its international reputation.
The British lawyer had been accused of sexual assault by a former employee. The allegations first became known in 2024 and in June of this year, Khan was suspended under suspicion. Khan had been chief prosecutor since 2021 and had, among other things, requested an arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli United Nations (UN) delegation immediately commented on Khan’s dismissal: “Khan believed that the world would ignore the serious allegations of sexual misconduct against him if he began a political witch hunt against Israel and issued a politically motivated arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu. He was wrong.”
A UN commission investigated the allegations against Khan and submitted its report to the court at the end of 2025. According to media reports, the commission considered it proven that Khan had “non-consensual sexual contact” with a female employee in his office, in his private home and during a business trip.
The situation is grist for the mill of the court’s critics, most notably the United States. The US government has welcomed Khan’s removal from office. “It is good that he’s gone, but he’s just a small cog in this irretrievably corrupt institution,” US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement on X. “Today’s outcome will have no impact whatsoever on US plans to dismantle the ICC,” he added. The US government has imposed sanctions on ICC judges and staff members at various times. They can no longer use their email addresses and credit cards, travel to the US and any bank balances in the United States are blocked. The US, like Israel, does not belong to the court and in July, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced his intention to “dismantle the ICC step by step.”
No doubt, the ICC’s reputation has suffered a serious setback. When the ICC’s own leadership comes under such a cloud, it is only natural that controversial cases involving the surrender of former heads of state by non-member countries will be viewed with renewed skepticism. International law is currently under pressure around the world. International courts and institutions are increasingly becoming entangled in political disputes and exposed to political pressure, raising concerns about their perceived independence and credibility.
