In the book East-West Street. On the origins of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” (2016), Philippe Sands intersects the personal and intellectual careers of lawyers Hersch Lauterpacht And Raphael Lemkin, Their considerations were decisive for the recognition of two dThese are the most serious crimes under international law. Both Legal terms were faked from the Atrocities against the Jewish population during the Second World War.
The idea of crimes against humanity, The term “murder and persecution of individuals as part of a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population” refers to Lauterpacht, who was a member of the British law enforcement team in the USA Nuremberg Trials. He in turn concept of genocide, whose central element is the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a human group, was coined by Lemkin, who worked with the American team on the same processes.
Both lawyers, Jews and whose families were decimated by National Socialism, lived and were educated in the city Lviv (Lviv), which then belonged to Poland and now belongs to Ukraine. Their contributions were crucial to the development of international human rights law and to the construction of the new international legal order that emerged thereafter Second World War. On the east-west road, Philippe Sands It also offers an intimate look into the lives, suffering and perseverance of two men determined to imagine a world capable of banishing horror and barbarism.
He Nuremberg International Military Tribunal It was created in August 1945 by the London Agreement signed by the Allies as a legal response to crimes that had shocked the conscience of humanity. Their work began in November 1945 and culminated in the announcement of the verdicts in October 1946. These trials were fundamental in the history of international criminal justice and cemented the principle of individual criminal responsibility for the commission of international crimes.
Another fundamental milestone of the last eighty years was the creation of the International Criminal Court in 1998 through the adoption of the Rome Statute, which became fully operational in 2002. This consolidated the first permanent international criminal court responsible for trying individuals for the most serious crimes of international concern.
Currently, 125 States are parties to the Rome Statute and have accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, reflecting the international community’s broad – although not universal – support for permanent international criminal justice. States that have not joined include the United States, Russia, China, India and Israel, an absence that limits the court’s universal reach.
The States that acceded to the Rome Statute recognized that crimes of this seriousness threatened the peace, security and well-being of the world and that joint efforts were required to confront them. The International Criminal Court was therefore created by the international community to deal with the criminal liability of individuals rather than states. However, crimes that shock the conscience of humanity continue to ravage the world, and the fight against impunity has failed to gain traction or receive full support, largely due to the reluctance of states with greater military and economic power.
In this context the The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, In May 2024, he applied for arrest warrants to be issued as part of the investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine. On November 21, 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I, composed of Judges Nicolás Guillou, Reine Alapini-Gansou and Beti Hohler, granted this request and ordered the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the commander-in-chief of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, whose order was later withdrawn after his death was confirmed.
On February 6, 2025, US President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14203 entitled “Imposing Sanctions Against the International Criminal Court”. The measure, primarily aimed at prosecutor Karim Khan, allows the imposition of economic and immigration sanctions, which include freezing assets under U.S. jurisdiction and banning entry into the country, against people directly or indirectly involved in International Criminal Court investigations or proceedings that Washington considers unlawful.
The sanctions imposed by the United States on judges of the International Criminal Court in connection with the investigations against Israel and the State of Palestine were imposed gradually throughout 2025. The first round in June 2025 reached the Vice President of the Court, Reine Alapini-Gansou (Benin), and the judges Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza (Peru) and Beti Hohler (Slovenia), all members of chambers that have intervened in important decisions on jurisdiction and arrest warrants. In August 2025, sanctions were expanded against Kimberly Prost (Canada) and Nicolas Guillou (France), increasing pressure on the Court’s judiciary. Finally, in December 2025, a new round included Judges Gocha Lordkipanidze (Georgia) and Erdenebalsuren Damdin (Mongolia), consolidating a pattern of graduated sanctions aimed exclusively at judges for their involvement in decisions related to the situation in Palestine.
The sanctions represent an attack on the judicial independence of the judges concerned and a direct interference in the exercise of their duties. In practice, they were subjected to a kind of financial and social isolation, forcing them to pay their daily expenses in cash, as they were unable to use credit cards or operate in the international banking system. These restrictions, resulting from the freezing of assets and exclusion from the financial system, also prevent them from regularly accessing many commonly used digital services, which has a significant impact on their personal and professional lives.
The sanctions imposed by the United States against judges of the International Criminal Court triggered a significant critical reaction within the international community, particularly from the European Union and several states with central importance in the international legal order. The European institutions and many member states – including France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium – reiterated their support for the Court as an independent judicial institution and stressed that sanctioning judges for the content of their decisions is incompatible with the international rule of law. These positions were joined by other relevant states such as Canada and South Africa, which warned against the dangerous precedent of criminalizing the exercise of international judicial functions. These reactions expressed explicit or implicit reference to the legacy of Nuremberg and recalled that international criminal justice was created to affirm that no political power is above the law and that the most serious crimes must be tried by independent and impartial courts.
In this sense, various statements have pointed out that the Nuremberg Trials not only enshrined the principle of individual criminal responsibility, but also a structural principle of the international legal order: the protection of judges from political reprisals. From this perspective, the sanctions were perceived not just as a short-term episode of diplomatic tension, but as a direct challenge to one of the post-war normative pillars, the validity of which is essential to the credibility and continuity of the international criminal justice system in a world that wants to be governed by the rule of law.
In this context, Sands’ book serves as a reminder of the importance of maintaining a system of international rules that can protect individuals from irreparable harm. The example of those who fought for the elimination of fratricidal violence and the submission of power to law more than eight decades ago should today be a resolute rejection of attacks on a legal system fundamental to maintaining peace.
Eduardo Oteiza is a professor at the University of La Plata and president of the International Association of Procedural Law
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