🍻 Selber Bier Brauen

Ein Vater verbindet ein Spielzeug-Furby mit Chat-GPT. Seine Tochter übt bei uns im Podcast-Studio mit diesem Matheaufgaben. Erweist sich künstliche Intelligenz als guter Lehrer?

Ein Vater verbindet einen alten Furby mit Chat-GPT. Damit schafft er seiner Tochter ein Spielzeug, das schlauer ist als jedes Lexikon. Was braucht es, damit Kinder von Spielzeugen lernen? Wie viel Nähe zu einer Maschine ist gut für ein Kind? Und ist KI ein guter Lehrer?

Die Nasa war in den letzten Monaten praktisch handlungsunfähig. Auf den neuen Leiter warten unangenehme Entscheidungen.

«Fand mein Gegenüber mich wirklich nett – oder war er nur höflich?» Wir unterschätzen unsere Wirkung derart, dass das Phänomen einen Namen hat: «liking gap». Die Kolumne «Psychologie des Alltags».

Mit dem Alter verändert sich der Körper. Manchmal entstehen deshalb Krankheiten. Wie Ärzte sie erkennen und welche Tests die Früherkennung in Zukunft verbessern könnten.

As the infrastructures for creating, replicating, and disseminating information have increased significantly since the advent of the World Wide Web, the tools used by nationalist governments to control those infrastructures have expanded and evolved to keep pace with technological change. Nationalist governments seek control of knowledge infrastructures both to promote their supporters and beliefs and to erase positions and people who they fear. While the increased embrace of nationalist practices – particularly in relation to information – is currently occurring in a distressing number of governments across Europe and the Americas, the United States (US) provides an especially stark example of how rapidly a nationalist government can gain political control of knowledge infrastructures to advance its preferred beliefs and silence opposing views.

Knowledge is dangerous, especially to governments

Governments have viewed knowledge as potentially dangerous to their authority as long as we have records of governments. Well before the Common Era (BCE) in Egypt, China, Greece, Jerusalem, Rome, and many other locations, governments were implementing censorship policies when written records were confined to papyrus scrolls and clay tablets. The first censorship campaign for which detailed records have survived was in China in 213 BCE, and it was thorough. The emperor Qin Shi Huang called for the burning of all texts contradicting his preferred version of history, along with the more than 400 authors of those texts just to make sure the stories would not be told again.

Most governments and religions kept an index of banned materials as a matter of basic policy. But, in a practical sense, censorship policies had only a small range of written materials to cover before the printing press made the written world much more available. Prior to the printing press, the cost of a typical book was about $20,000 in production costs in today’s money. Such books were filled with transcription errors that had accumulated over time, and in many cases the creation of new copies took more time than the decay of the existing books due to the materials used. New discoveries were often forgotten faster than they could be recorded.

The first comprehensive government programs to control knowledge infrastructures were created in response to the printing press, as this invention suddenly made it much easier to spread information that a government did not want to spread. The printing press greatly advanced access to information, which in turn spurred increases in literacy. The rapid expansion of the written word encouraged mass confusion and increased isolation along national and religious lines, producing many bloody conflicts driven by differences in religious beliefs that were now in print for all to read.

Learning to control knowledge infrastructures

Control of what information was printed and disseminated became a driving goal for most governments, leading to banned books lists and state control of who had license to print materials. As the period of European powers creating colonial empires coincided with the expansion of publications and literacy via the printing press, the colonizers could wield their power both through printing and through censorship. Later new technologies, such as the telegraph and the steam-powered printing press, would further government control over empires and knowledge infrastructures by giving the government the ability to learn new information faster and thus control narratives about events.

The Habsburg Empire implemented policies to control knowledge infrastructures that spanned centuries. In Spain, the Habsburg policies led to the Inquisition and an approved books list of about 100 titles. In the central European branch of the Empire, every creative act had to be approved by the authorities, and all improvisations were forbidden. Public performances had a police officer in the audience following the script word for word with any actor guilty of deviating however slightly arrested on the spot.

Asserting control over knowledge infrastructures is a defining characteristic of nationalist governments, which work to inextricably link their political party to the nation and state itself. The marginalization and dehumanization of minority populations and political opponents is one of the core uses of these infrastructures. Nationalism defines current governments such as Argentina’s Javier Milei, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, India’s Narendra Modi, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Russia’s Vladmir Putin, and Donald Trump in the US, among many others.

The twentieth century featured many nationalist states – such as Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Communist China, and the Soviet Union – seeking comprehensive control of knowledge infrastructures that incorporated a widening array of communication technologies including newspapers, radio, films, academic journals and scientific publications, recordings, and television. Such control included sometimes arresting – or much worse – scientists, journalists, and librarians. These governments undermined and attacked education, expertise, and public discourse so that the tools for dissent were badly weakened or no longer existed. Control of educational curricula was employed as a powerful means to dictate the information that was available. Dissenting writers were silenced and their works burned publicly. Such twentieth century efforts simultaneously promoted the government-approved narratives and beliefs, while limiting or erasing other perspectives. Russia’s Vladmir Putin, the person who has invented much of the playbook for government control of knowledge infrastructures in the information age, has stated that “Wars are won by teachers”.

In the twenty-first century, the capacities of the World Wide Web magnify the power and reach of government efforts to control knowledge infrastructures. Government messages can be spread instantly to create the preferred narrative and drown out a dissenting narrative. Social discord and disorganization among opponents can be created through disinformation that distracts from real threats. Online harassment of opponents can intimidate and punish those who dissent. Swarms of bots can be deployed to further disinformation and cyberbullying efforts on a massive scale. The Internet can even be slowed or turned off to control information flows within a country.

For Internet-enhanced nationalist governments, control of information, censoring information, and spreading disinformation are now entirely interrelated. The growth of knowledge infrastructures inevitably leads nationalist governments to discover new methods of control, like removing all of the information about a population from government websites. All these Internet-enabled methods are enhancements to the established methods.

Asserting control of knowledge infrastructures

One key lesson that nationalist governments have learned is that a flurry of activity and disinformation is very useful in accomplishing their goals. Opponents are left working to keep track of all the changes, to determine which are conjectures and which are genuine proposals, to ascertain which have been implemented, and to figure out the implications of the changes. The more that is happening, the harder it is to understand how these changes interact with one another. That confusion is intended, enhancing the unending stream of falsehoods to make you question your own perceptions of reality.

In the US, this tactic can actively be witnessed in the relentless efforts by the second Donald Trump administration to take control over knowledge infrastructures in the US, primarily through executive orders rather than legislation, during its first year in office. Since taking office in January 2025, the Trump administration has:

• Fired many government employees with specific areas of expertise and in positions related to information collection, oversight, analysis, and accuracy, including the Librarian of Congress and the Archivist of the United States.
• Removed thousands of government webpages, many focused on science.
• Mandated government use of nationalist terms such as “restoring patriotism” and “restoring American exceptionalism”, which are contrary to the independent missions of institutions, while also prohibiting the use of other terms and perspectives.
• Shuttered federal grant programs and agencies supporting libraries, archives, and museums, such as the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
• Fired all the librarians at federal government agencies, such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Library that supports public health professionals across the US.
• Required the federal museums of the Smithsonian Institution to submit their exhibition content, plans for future shows, and guidelines for review by the White House.
• Ended all federal government funding for independent public media, such as National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).
• Closed or greatly diminished federal agencies devoted to collecting and disseminating news and other information resources, such as the Voice of America (VOA).
• Cancelled many already awarded grants devoted to topics the administration objects to, such as projects focused on issues of gender, diversity, equity, and inclusion, from agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF).
• Ended federal funding related to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
• Asserted direct control over the curriculum in all schools run by the federal government, such as military academy schools.
• Created lists of banned books for federal government libraries.
• Eliminated federal funding for programs that the administration objects to, particularly those related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Threatened to cancel broadcasting licenses or take other retaliatory regulatory actions from commercial networks airing content the administration disagrees with, such as trying to get television comedians Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert removed from their respective late night programs.
• Encouraged censorship organizations looking to ban materials about marginalized populations in local schools and libraries while simultaneously claiming that no such censorship organizations exist.

The second Trump administration entered office with an extensive plan – known as Project 2025 – prepared to accomplish massive changes to the federal government and the entire country. Many of these ideas had been proposed repeatedly but not acted upon in the first Trump administration. And, in addition to all these tactics to control scientific knowledge infrastructures, Trump spreads a great deal of strange disinformation related to science, such as clearly not understanding the causes of wildfires.

One alarmingly notable thread across these efforts to control knowledge infrastructures is trying to establish which perspectives and experiences are to be considered truly American. These policies variously target Black, Indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC), lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and beyond (LGBTQIA+), disabled, and immigrant populations to establish that these traditionally marginalized populations are not worthy of inclusion in the administration’s vision for America. Many of the policies of Project 2025 intentionally increase the disadvantages faced by already marginalized populations. The same populations are often spoken of in highly negative terms by Trump.

The extent of the Trump administration’s success thus far in asserting control over information is evident in the rising amounts of self-censorship. In an example of unsuccessfully trying to avoid criticism, Harvard Education Publishing Group cancelled an issue of one its own journals in 2025 shortly before publication. The issue focused on the damage done to the educational infrastructure of Gaza during the war with Israel. Given the strong anti-Gaza stance of the Trump administration, even writing about the need to educate the children of Gaza displaced by the war was determined to be potentially displeasing to the Trump administration.

Controlling science infrastructures

All the means of controlling the knowledge infrastructure noted above have been readily applied to scientific knowledge infrastructures, through ending funding programs, closing agencies, cancelling grants, threatening retribution, and firing experts. Additionally, the Trump administration has taken further steps to control the scientific knowledge infrastructure by elevating the roles and opinions of those who lack scientific expertise.

The clearest example of all these methods of undermining scientific knowledge infrastructures through political action can be found in the appointment of Robert F. Kenndey, Jr. to the position of Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). With a budget in the billions and control over most of the health, medicine, and safety research done by the US government, HHS is the perfect avenue through which to undermine and repurpose the scientific knowledge infrastructure in the US.

Kennedy has seemingly devoted his life to contradicting established science, including spreading disinformation about many diseases and vaccines, while advocating for treatments that have no scientific basis. Placing an anti-science activist in charge of HHS guarantees that the scientific knowledge infrastructure in the US will be greatly altered to disregard research, evidence, and scientific data in favor of the personal, not-science-based beliefs of Kennedy and the political objectives of the Trump administration. Kennedy has cancelled health and safety research programs, already stopped public education programs, and appointed people who share his beliefs rather than relevant expertise to advisory committees.

The political intentions to undermine scientific knowledge infrastructures through HSS were perfectly encapsulated in a report issued by the agency entitled Make America Healthy Again, which had to be retracted and corrected multiple times. Not only was much of the content contrary to established scientific evidence, a large portion of the work cited in the first version of the report did not exist. Publications and scientists were made up, while actually existing publications and scientists were wildly mischaracterized; the report was also filled with obvious indicators that generative AI had been used to write the report rather than experts.

A depressing centerpiece

The US is less than one year into the second Trump administration. The mounting damage to knowledge infrastructures overall, and particularly to scientific ones, is painfully evident. The capture and misuse of knowledge infrastructures by nationalist governments is central to their political strategies of controlling what information is available, what information is censored, and what disinformation is foisted upon the public. Whether the goal is to erase the presence of marginalized cultures or inconvenient scientific truths, political control of knowledge infrastructures is a depressing centerpiece of the playbook of the increasing numbers of nationalist governments in the twenty-first century.

This essay is adapted from the forthcoming book entitled Book Bans, Disinformation, and Cultural Erasure: The Censorship Movement in Libraries, Schools, and Society by Paul T. Jaeger, which will be published in 2026 by Bloomsbury.

The post State-Approved Information appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

From September 2026 onwards, girls up to the age of 14 will be prohibited from wearing Islamic headscarves in Austrian public and private schools. Although the ECtHR allows states to establish schools as religiously neutral places of encounter and to prohibit pupils from visibly displaying religious symbols, it remains doubtful whether this new legislative attempt will be upheld by the Austrian Constitutional Court (Verfassungsgerichtshof, VfGH), as it narrowly targets only Muslim headscarves. Already in 2020, the VfGH ruled that a comparable law was unconstitutional. The girls’ freedom of religion, as well as the principle of equality and neutrality, pose significant obstacles to the constitutionality of such a selective restriction. Although the legislator must protect the young girls’ autonomy from external pressure to wear a headscarf, and is justified in ensuring integration and combating radicalisation, it is meeting its obligation to protect at the expense of those girls who voluntarily choose to wear one. However, this “collateral damage” may prove necessary in view of many reports from teachers and sociologists stating that the autonomy and determination of many girls’ identities in schools are increasingly threatened by societal forces. These significant social changes may induce the Constitutional Court to reassess its jurisprudence and adapt it accordingly.

The headscarf as a subject of controversy

Even though wearing the Islamic headscarf is primarily an expression of religious belief and identity, it is often attributed with strong political and cultural significance. This appears to be leading to a new “culture war” which has also reached the European Parliament (on hijabs). Unlike in the context of equal treatment in employment and occupation, where the EU has adopted secondary legislation and the ECJ, in principle, accepted the prohibition on wearing headscarves imposed by employers, there is no respective legislative competence related to the situation in schools that could trigger the applicability of the Charter of Fundamental Rights under its Article 51. Wearing clothing with religious connotations is, however, undoubtedly protected by the freedom of religion, as enshrined in constitutions and the ECHR, which enjoys constitutional rank in Austria. Courts in Europe are regularly confronted with questions related to headscarves and have upheld restrictions, inter alia, for teachers, legal trainees and judges, in particular to maintain peace in schools or to protect confidence in the judicial system. The ECtHR has also accepted the ban of full-face veils in public to protect the right of others to “live in a space of socialisation”, as it has accepted headscarf bans in educational institutions for university students and teachers.

The fact that all these decisions have met considerable criticism highlights the growing concerns over religious symbols in increasingly diverse, yet secular societies, as well as the difficulties of balancing individual freedoms with conflicting – and often controversial – public interests. A rather recent twist is the extension of bans on religious symbols in schools also to pupils, i.e. persons not serving a public function, including schoolgirls who wear headscarves. Yet, such bans must not intend to protect a woman from herself or impose an abstract concept of dignity against her will. Accordingly, the Austrian legislator – with a broad majority in the parliament – invoked several other grounds, including the protection of the child’s best interests and the girls’ autonomy, the prevention of segregation, and the promotion of integration and gender equality.

Beyond the absolute – striking a fair balance

The measure particularly interferes with the freedom of religion, the parental rights to education, and equality. Even though the legislator doubts that girls under the age of 14 have the intellectual capabilities and maturity to fully assess the various dimensions of wearing a headscarf, it has to be stressed that the Convention on the Rights of the Child does not set a strict age limit for exercising the freedom of religion. Consequently, the headscarf ban can also restrict the rights of very young girls (see also CRC Committee Concluding Observations Austria para. 37). Freedom of religion, however, is not an absolute human right and does not confer the right to always and everywhere fully comply with one’s own religious beliefs (see also here). Moreover, the principle of equality allows for differentiation, provided it is based on objective grounds. The intention behind the headscarf ban in Austrian schools serves legitimate public aims, which, in principle, can justify limitations and differential treatment.

Proportionality reloaded

Overturning the first headscarf ban in 2020, the VfGH argued that the measure was not even capable of serving the integration of girls as they could withdraw from public schools and attend private schools instead, to which the ban did not apply, and thus become even more marginalised. The new legislation extends to private schools as well; therefore, only raising the question of whether its objective could be prevented by a substantial shift towards homeschooling (which in Austria is guaranteed by constitutional law). Due to the strict requirements for homeschooling, a mass shift is unlikely, as evidenced by other countries that have introduced a headscarf ban in schools. This also minimises concerns regarding the girls’ right to education, which, in principle, is not infringed by such a ban.

In addition, the VfGH emphasised that where autonomy is threatened, measures must be directed against those persons exercising coercion. To ensure proportionality, such measures should be pursued as the least intrusive means of protecting the girls’ autonomy, provided that alternatives are equally effective. Yet, referring to the private authors of coercion alone (classmates and parents) arguably risks misjudging the limits of control and the influence of clandestine social power dynamics, as well as paternalistic structures. Peer pressure from boys or other girls may often go unnoticed by teaching staff. This is even more true for coercion exerted by parents endowed with strong authority. Teachers not only lack the competence to intervene in such cases, but family life and the right to raise children enjoy special protection under Article 8 and 9 of the ECHR, as well as under Article 2 of the Protocol to the ECHR. Equipping girls with the possibility to invoke a legal prohibition on wearing the headscarf against individuals and structures that put them under pressure represents a highly effective method of empowerment, guaranteeing their autonomy.

Concession of solidarity

Anyway, the regulation is only problematic insofar as it also prohibits girls from wearing headscarves voluntarily. In such cases, they are denied the exercise of their own freedom to enable others to exercise theirs (self-determination and negative freedom of religion) in a situation where those responsible cannot be effectively prevented from infringing their rights. Nevertheless, the ECtHR has deemed such a restriction permissible in the school context. Such a ban, which also applies to girls who are not responsible for threatening the autonomy of others, constitutes a significant restriction of their freedom, but it can be considered as a concession of solidarity. To ensure proportionality, the ban is strictly limited to the school environment, meaning that girls are not prevented from wearing a headscarf outside of schools.

Furthermore, potential circumvention of the ban must be considered: In countries with headscarf bans, girls often resort to turbans, baseball caps, or wigs. Corresponding pressure could be exerted at least with regard to these alternative forms of head coverings; yet, since the law expressly refers to the traditional Islamic headscarf, no broader interpretation can be considered in this respect. Although these alternative head coverings lack a comparable religious or political significance, the coercion to wear them could still undermine the protection of autonomy under Article 8 of the ECHR. However, beyond questions of decency, manners, and respect, school rules may prohibit all headwear in class.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me – equality and religious neutrality

Even if a restriction of religious freedom were permissible in principle, differential treatment remains and entails two dimensions. First, the VfGH has derived the principle of religious neutrality from the principle of equality in conjunction with the right to religious freedom. In contrast to states with a laic tradition, Austria perceives itself as merely secular, i.e. it does not relegate religion to the private sphere and does not enforce a strict separation. Instead, religious communities in Austria enjoy a special legal status. In some of its pertinent decisions (e.g. here, here, here and here), the ECtHR was seized with situations in states with a laic tradition, a constitutional decision it respected. But the fact that the ECtHR has also granted a corresponding margin of appreciation to Belgium shows that no stricter standard applies to merely secular states. Nevertheless, Austria must treat all religions equally.

Furthermore, and combined with this state-theoretical dimension of the principle of equality, it also has an impact on individual legal relationships, guaranteeing the right not to be treated unequally in similar circumstances without a sufficient objective reason. The respective restriction on wearing the headscarf concerns two instances of differential treatment. First, with regard to the subject matter, it is selective because only one specific religious symbol will be banned. Originally, the draft law referred to head coverings for “cultural reasons”, although it was already clear from the explanatory notes at that time that it was intended to target the Islamic headscarf. The final legal provision no longer conceals this intention. In doing so, it makes it clear that it specifically addresses only one item of clothing and religious symbol of a particular religion. Second, the measure is also selective in terms of gender. Islamic clothing worn by men, such as the caftan or the shekia, is not covered; nor is the kippah worn by Jewish boys, or the patka worn by Sikh boys. This unequal treatment requires justification which, in the case of differentiation based on religious affiliation or gender (so-called “verpönte Merkmale” under Austrian law), requires a higher level of justification.

First question: Is the headscarf even comparable to other religious symbols?

Such a requirement for justification would not even emerge if comparability were already denied so that a claim to equal treatment would not arise. As an expression of religious belief, the headscarf is comparable to other items of clothing with religious connotations. Comparability could only be denied if one were to reinterpret the headscarf in such a way that it was primarily attributed political or cultural significance, which would largely emancipate it from its religious meaning. However, the VfGH (e.g. here and here), the ECtHR (e.g. here, here and here) and other courts emphasise that the religiously neutral state cannot claim interpretative authority in this regard. It seems highly unlikely that the Austrian Constitutional Court would accept a legislative reinterpretation of the headscarf this time.

The crucial question: Can a clearly selective measures be exceptionally justified?

If there is a right to equal treatment, the question arises as to whether it is permissible to address only girls and only the headscarf worn in accordance with Islamic tradition. The legislator assumes that boys are not subject to comparable social pressure. Obviously, this still needs to be substantiated with facts because prima facie, it does not appear impossible that young men are also under considerable pressure, for example from their parents or classmates, to dress in accordance with religious norms. Even if boys are not subject to the same cultural expectations and forms of sexualisations, their autonomy is no less important. With regard to the unequal treatment of Islam and girls, justification can also only come from a changed factual situation. There is an increasing number of reports from teachers and sociologists (e.g. here, here and here) stating that the climate in schools has changed: Girls who are perceived as Muslim are pressured by male and female classmates to conform to orthodox religious practices, to distance themselves from (ostensibly) Western and “corrupting” values through their clothing, and thus to consciously adopt an ideology that makes integration more difficult. If this is sufficiently proven, it may not only result in an obligation to protect the autonomy (Article 8 of the ECHR) and negative freedom of religion (Article 9 of the ECHR) of the girls, but also to enforce the state’s core interest in fighting radicalisation and facilitating integration in order to ensure a peaceful, tolerant coexistence. Reaching out to young people in the school context is of utmost importance. Although the parental right to religious education and teaching their children must be respected, this right has to be balanced and protected particularly against indoctrination. It is precisely this that should be ruled out. Of course, the teaching and school environment must not be geared towards arguing in favour of or against a certain religion, and stigmatisation must be avoided.

Accordingly, it is mostly the unequal treatment of persons and religions that raises questions about the measure’s compliance with human rights. On the one hand, the ECtHR has stressed the neutrality of the ban on religious symbols in schools to justify a respective law, while also referring to the domestic constitutional principle of neutrality (also see here and here). On the other hand, it also accepted limitations – at least de facto – confined to women. The VfGH has not only stressed equal treatment in religious matters, but it has also invoked the risk of stigmatisation as a consequence of the differential treatment. This could only be rejected if the legislator were able to prove a real and factual problem with Islamic headscarves worn by schoolgirls. To be on the safe side and to leave no doubts about its neutrality, however, the legislator should have opted for a full ban on the wearing of visible symbols of belief.

To have or not to have … a margin of appreciation

The decisive factor will be the margin of appreciation that courts grant to politics to strike a fair balance between conflicting rights and interests. What makes the debate on headscarves in schools special is that the boundaries are less clear-cut than is often the case. It is not simply a matter of the state versus civil society. Instead, there are also women’s rights NGOs, feminists, and religious representatives who argue in favour of the ban. In diverse, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious societies, the role of the state as an arbitrator is becoming increasingly important. In particular, in the context of the state’s educational mandate, this requires leeway, which must be filled through a process of social deliberation; and the number of states banning religious clothing in schools shows that there is no consensus among the parties to the ECHR going in one direction. At best, schools are places of encounter, experimentation, and identity formation, and possibly the only safe space where young people can experience freedom, personal responsibility, and self-efficacy, enabling them to make truly autonomous decisions as they mature. In Austria, there has been a response to the concerns of teachers and sociologists that girls perceived as Muslim are under considerable pressure to behave in accordance with religious norms. This is not generally problematic in terms of human rights, but rather a necessity. However, it may prove problematic that the full step has not been taken to design schools in a manner reflecting full equality, where the visible display of all religious symbols is prohibited, where pupils can meet without becoming an object of projection for social conflicts, and where they can savour a glance of freedom.

The post Lifting the Veil? Oops, They Did it Again appeared first on Verfassungsblog.

Imagine a Western head of government sanctioning the attorney general and judges of the supreme court because they have brought criminal proceedings against his party colleagues. He has their assets seized, their bank accounts frozen, and their freedom of movement restricted. He prohibits national companies from doing business with the sanctioned individuals, including their family members. A fundamental attack on the separation of powers and the work of the judiciary? Yes! Unimaginable? Unfortunately, no!

This is precisely what the Trump administration has now done with the leadership of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) and six judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The sanctions were imposed by Presidential Executive Order 14203 (“EO”) on February 6, 2025.¹⁾ It was initially limited to (then) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan (currently on leave), but was expanded by Secretary of State Marco Rubio²⁾ to four judges³⁾ on June 5, 2025, and to the two deputy prosecutors⁴⁾ and two other judges⁵⁾ on August 20, 2025. Furthermore, there is the threat of institutional sanctions against the ICC, which, although so far unsuccessful at the legislative level in the US Senate at the beginning of the year (“Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act”),⁶⁾ can be taken up again by Congress at any time or ordered by a new EO. The ICC, too, therefore needs a kind of “Judicial Resilience Project” against the threat of right-wing populism,⁷⁾ but at the supranational level.

Justification for the sanctions

The sanctions are justified on the grounds that the ICC, through the aforementioned individuals, has initiated investigations “without a legitimate basis” against US personnel and “certain of its allies“⁸⁾ – so-called “protected persons”⁹⁾ – and that this “malign conduct” by this “bankrupt institution” violates the sovereignty of the US and undermines its national security. Specifically, the sanctioned individuals are allegedly “directly engaged in any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person without consent of that person’s country of nationality” (Section 1(a)(ii)(A) EO 14203). However, apart from Israel, no US allies are mentioned, and in fact, at the time the EO was issued, the only proceedings still ongoing were those in the “Situation in the State of Palestine”, which on November 21, 2024, led to the issuance of (unpublished) arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Gallant (as well as three Hamas leaders who have since been killed).

In contrast, Prosecutor Khan had already limited the investigations in the Afghanistan proceedings to the Taliban¹⁰⁾ on September 27, 2021, and effectively discontinued (“deprioritised”) them with regard to US citizens. This means that there are currently no investigations whatsoever against US citizens. The sanctioning of the aforementioned individuals can thus, apart from the Trump administration’s ideological hostility toward the ICC as a representative of international (criminal) law accountability, only be explained by the Israel/Palestine/Gaza investigations. This is further evidenced by the (additional) sanctioning of the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, by Secretary of State Rubio on July 9, 2025.

Only Prosecutor Khan (and his two deputies since his leave) and Judges Alapini Gansou, Guillou, and Hohler (as members of the Pre-Trial Chamber that issued the above-mentioned arrest warrants) have been involved in the Israel/Palestine investigations to date. The other sanctioned judges (Balungi Bossa, Ibáñez Carranza, and Prost) authorized, as part of the Appeals Chamber – alongside the now-retired (and unsanctioned) judges Hofmánski and Morrison –, the Afghanistan investigation on March 5, 2020. This makes the US government’s sanctions strategy clear: only judges who are still active and those who, as part of the Appeals Chamber, authorized the original Afghanistan investigations (including US citizens in addition to the Taliban, among others) should be sanctioned, but not all judges involved in the Afghanistan proceedings (such as Italian judge Aitala, who played a key role in the PreTrial Chamber II’s decision on April 12, 2019 declining to authorize the investigation).

The US government is therefore solely concerned with protecting its own nationals and those of allied States (Israel), not with ICC proceedings in general. As long as these are directed against adversaries or enemies of the US (Taliban) or Israel (Hamas), the US government has no problem with the ICC’s alleged “overreach.” But when the law is to be enforced against the US or its friends, the court itself becomes the enemy. These double standards are not new; they can also be observed in the so-called war on drugs: while the Trump administration extrajudicially executes alleged “narco-terrorists” in the Caribbean (for evidence of the clear violation of international law, see here, here, and also here), it simultaneously pardons the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who had previously been sentenced to 45 years in prison by an US court in a fair trial for, inter alia, drug trafficking.

Sanctions with grave consequences

A designated person and their family members are prohibited from traveling to the United States. All of their property and property interests located in the United States, or in the possession or control of U.S. persons, are blocked and must be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In addition, all natural or legal persons that are directly or indirectly owned, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are themselves blocked. All transactions by U.S. persons, or within (or transiting) the United States, that involve property or property interests of designated or otherwise blocked persons are prohibited, unless authorized by a general or specific OFAC license or covered by an applicable exemption. These prohibitions include the provision or supply of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any sanctioned person and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person (see also Galbraith and Hovell).

However, these are only the primary effects of the sanctions, also known as primary sanctions. Secondary sanctions can be even more serious. They extend beyond US territory and US citizens and companies, i.e., they have an extraterritorial and global effect. Sometimes they are also a consequence of overcompliance, which at the same time demonstrates the chilling effect of the primary sanctions. By way of example, a European bank based in the EU, which is not itself directly subject to the sanctions, terminates the account of a sanctioned person because it fears negative consequences for its U.S. business. Two of the six judges involved have commented publicly on the concrete effects of the sanctions: the French judge Guillou (here) and the Canadian judge Prost (here and here). Beyond the ban on entry into the US, they report that from one day to the next they could no longer receive goods, services, or funds from US companies (e.g., Amazon, Airbnb, PayPal, Visa, Master Card), along with indirect (secondary) effects on transactions with European companies as well, such as their domestic bank or a travel company. Similar accounts were given by UN Special Rapporteur Albanese during a hearing in the Italian Senate; at the same time, the manager of her Italian “Banca Etica” (!) regretted that he had to close her account and asked politicians to take countermeasures.

On the EU’s (possible) countermeasures

In order to avoid such (extraterritorial) effects, the EU previously issued – in connection with US sanctions against Cuba and Iran – a so-called blocking regulation (Regulation 2271/96 of November 29, 1996), which prohibits EU “persons” (natural and legal persons, Art. 11) from complying with such sanctions. In a landmark decision of December 21, 2021 (“Bank Melli Iran v. Telekom Deutschland GmbH”)¹¹⁾, the European Court of Justice (ECJ, Grand Chamber) first confirmed, in accordance with the recitals of the regulation, that the extraterritorial effect of US sanctions “harm[s] the interests of the European Union, as well as those of the persons referred to, in violating international law and compromising the realisation of the European Union’s objectives [in contributing to the development of world trade]” (para. 37). The prohibition (pursuant to Art. 5 of Regulation 2271/96) on complying with such sanctions also applies, “in the absence of an order directing compliance issued by the administrative or judicial authorities of the third countries which adopted those laws.” (para. 42-51). An EU company may terminate contracts with sanctioned persons—even without giving reasons—but not solely on the basis of US sanctions; it must adduce and demonstrate other reasons, e.g., of an economic nature (para. 52-68).¹²⁾ The resulting conflict with the fundamental right of entrepreneurial freedom (Art. 16 EU Charter of Fundamental Rights) must ultimately be resolved through a proportionality assessment, balancing the pursuit of the aforementioned Union objectives against the economic interests of the undertaking concerned. Those interests must give way insofar as the invalidity of a termination of a contract with a sanctioned person—as a consequence of the EU-mandated non-compliance with extraterritorial sanctions—has no “disproportionate effects” on the company concerned (para. 69-95).¹³⁾

Such a blocking regulation was also discussed in response to US sanctions against the ICC (see European Parliament here and here). Another EU countermeasure that could be considered in this context is the instrument against economic coercion (Regulation (EU) 2023/2675) adopted in 2023. It dates back to Chinese coercive measures against Lithuania over its Taiwan policy in 2021. Article 2(1) of the Regulation defines economic coercion as “third-country measure affecting trade or investment in order to prevent or obtain the cessation, modification or adoption of a particular act by the Union or a Member State, thereby interfering in the legitimate sovereign choices of the Union or a Member State.” This instrument is therefore primarily a response to economic coercive measures (such as the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration). However, if one assumes that measures of this kind (such as the ICC sanctions) also interfere with the EU’s sovereign foreign policy (in this case, its unconditional support for the ICC),¹⁴⁾the activation of Regulation 2023/2675 could certainly be justified. Otherwise, the EU could also adopt a more tailor-made legal act.

So far, the EU has not produced any such formal response—not only because of the legal (and economic) problems outlined above, but (probably) also because it fears that the US government could then sanction the Court as a whole. On the one hand, this possibility, as noted at the outset, must be taken seriously; if it were to materialize, the very existence of the Court would be at stake. On the other hand, however, verbal protests and declarations of solidarity¹⁵⁾ alone cannot mitigate the effects of the sanctions. Even the commendable and important efforts of the ICC Registry to strengthen the resilience, adaptability, and sustainability of the ICC,¹⁶⁾ including through the use of national circumvention strategies,¹⁷⁾ as well as the domestic dialogue of certain States Parties with relevant national economic actors cannot replace the effects of a formal EU response (in particular through a blocking regulation).

Attack on the Law

It is an irony of history that the US, the country that was largely responsible for the Nuremberg trial of the major war criminals, now wants to destroy the very court that would not exist without Nuremberg. Unlike in the Caribbean, the Trump administration’s sanctions do not kill physically, but they do destroy the civil existence of the ICC’s representatives sanctioned. The sanctions amount to a form of civil death because those sanctioned can no longer participate in normal business and social life. Independent prosecutors and judges are being equated with terrorists, organized criminals, and corrupt dictators. In other words, they are being punished for doing their job—a “job” for which they were elected and appointed and for which they enjoy special protection (Art. 48(2) ICC Statute).¹⁸⁾ At the same time, the sanctions and the accompanying reprisals and threats against members of the ICC and the Court as a whole – as well as the Russian prosecution and conviction (in absentia) of ICC leadership personnel – can be classified as crimes against the administration of justice within the meaning of Art. 70 (1) (d), (e) ICC Statute (see also the ASP Resolution of December 5, 2025, para. 4; also Hovell).

The US sanctions policy thus proves to be not only an attack on the ICC, but an attack on the law itself. This requires an institutional response, more than just verbal protest. Words must be followed by concrete action. An EU legal act in the form of a blocking regulation or a more tailored instrument (possibly based on the Regulation against economic coercion) could be such an action (see also Hovell [with further measures also within the US] and Iverson). It would not only help like-minded EU actors to maintain their contractual relations with the ICC, but would also send a strong, not merely symbolic signal of European determination beyond the EU and Europe. It would represent a first step towards achieving European sovereignty, long overdue in this area as well. At the same time, the ICC should – as a preventive measure with a view to possible institutional sanctions – make itself independent of US companies (e.g., Microsoft Office).

For a brief audio version (in German) see here.

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