ICC ousts chief prosecutor Khan in 82-13 vote, deepening court crisis

ICC member nations voted 82 to 13 to remove Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan over sexual assault allegations, the first ouster of a sitting chief prosecutor in the court's 24-year history.

"The seriousness of the allegations, and the breakdown of trust between Karim Khan and the member states justifies his removal," a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry said.

The vote, held at UN headquarters in New York, saw 15 abstentions among the 125 member states. Khan, a 56-year-old British barrister, has been on leave since May 2025 after an aide accused him of coercing her into non-consensual sexual acts. He denies any wrongdoing. An investigation by the ICC's oversight body found her testimony "was given candidly, unhesitatingly and with details that rendered her experiences believable," according to a report cited by the Wall Street Journal.

The ouster thrusts the ICC into its most precarious moment as the Trump administration escalates a campaign to dismantle the institution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this month pledged a "whole-of-government response to systematically disable" the tribunal, while Venezuela announced its withdrawal from the Rome Statute on Friday.

The vote exposed a sharp divide among the court's membership

European nations and major donors such as Japan and Australia concluded the allegations were credible and could not be ignored. Japan's Mitsuaki Mizuno, director of international judicial proceedings at the Foreign Ministry, said Khan's conduct "must be seen to have undermined the credibility of the ICC." A bloc of African and developing nations opposed the removal, with some framing the disciplinary process as political retaliation for Khan's decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Khan's lawyer, Tayab Ali, said the former prosecutor was "never given a fair opportunity to be heard" and that they would challenge "the lawfulness and fairness of the decision through all available legal mechanisms." Assembly President Päivi Kaukoranta countered that the body fully respected Khan's due process rights.

The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant remain in force

Only ICC judges can withdraw arrest warrants, meaning Khan's removal does not affect the cases against the Israeli leaders. The warrants, approved by judges in November 2024, accuse Netanyahu and Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their conduct of the war in Gaza. The evidence "is overwhelming," said Mark Kersten, assistant professor at the University of the Fraser Valley and a senior consultant at the Wayamo Foundation.

The office will continue to be run by Deputy Prosecutors Nazhat Shameen Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang, who have led it since Khan took leave in May 2025. An election for a successor is underway but is not expected to conclude before next year.

The last time the ICC faced a comparable leadership crisis was in 2021, when the court's then-president, Judge Piotr Hofmanski, navigated the institution through US sanctions imposed during the first Trump administration. Those sanctions targeted then-Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda over investigations into US military actions in Afghanistan. The current campaign is broader: Rubio has threatened sanctions against any organization that works with the court and has urged member states to withdraw. The US State Department on Friday called the ICC "corrupt and worthless" and said "it is time to dismantle" the institution.

Palestinian representatives rejected the characterization that the vote was a proxy for the Gaza situation. "The vote to remove the prosecutor was not a political proxy vote on any situation before the court," Palestinian Ambassador to the Netherlands Ammar Hijazi said.

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