President Connolly criticises International Criminal Court sanctions

President Catherine Connolly at an informal meeting of the Arraiolos Group in Slovenia where she questioned how nations can 'credibly talk about peace, progress, and security' when there is a toleration of the 'normalisation of war and genocide'. Picture: Tony Maxwell

President Catherine Connolly has criticised the imposition of sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the institution continues to be targeted by US president Donald Trump.

Last week, just hours after a former ICC judge was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr Trump and secretary of state Marco Rubio slapped further sanctions on the court.

This included “banning transactions” with the court and cutting off its financial resources. It also warned US allies against engaging with the ICC.

At his UN General Assembly address in September, Mr Trump branded the ICC an “evil group of people” and called on countries to “officially resign from this rogue institution immediately”.

Ms Connolly has now criticised sanctions against the court, while not mentioning Mr Trump directly.

At a speech at the annual meeting of the Arraiolos Group in Slovenia on Friday, she questioned the type of world we are living in. She raised concerns about wars, climate change, and the undermining of global institutions.

This included the ICC, which has been in the firing line of Mr Trump.

“A world where sanctions have been imposed on judges of the International Criminal Court, and where the European Court of Human Rights is under pressure from its own member states to interpret the Convention in a specific way,” Ms Connolly said.

“This important gathering provides us with a timely opportunity to reflect and ask how we collectively and as individual member states have allowed this to happen.

“Is it that we have colluded in the self-serving use of language with a dangerously limited vocabulary? For example, when the phrase 'rules-based order' is repeated over and over, whose rules and what order are we championing?”

Ms Connolly questioned how nations can “credibly talk about peace, progress, and security” when there is a toleration of the “normalisation of war and genocide”.

She further expressed concerns over the UN Charter at a time when the “very structures set up to implement it are being constantly undermined”.

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She noted that there are 20 conflicts which have lasted more than two decades, leading to “entire generations who have known nothing but war”.

She argued that the displacement of 117.8 million people and the widening gap between rich and poor are being “fuelled by the profits of the military industrial complex”.

Ms Connolly told the gathering that she was raising these concerns as the head of state of a “committed and concerned European and as President of an independent, neutral republic” which “knows first-hand the experience of starvation, emigration and conflict”.

“This experience underpins and informs the value we place on international law and its implementation,” she added. “It has also shown us that any long-lasting and just resolution of conflict can only be realised by peaceful, dedicated and meticulous negotiations.”

The comments come just weeks after Ms Connolly welcomed Ms Trump to Áras an Uachtaráin as part of his two-day trip to Ireland in September.

• Louise Burne, political correspondent