The International Criminal Court (ICC) and its officials are the winners of the 2026 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Parliament's top human rights award. The announcement was made on Thursday and comes 13 days after the United States government imposed sanctions on the court itself, on 9 October.
The prize is worth €50,000 and will be presented at the December plenary session in Strasbourg.
"No peace without justice"
Announcing the decision, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said the prize "recognises the important work of the Court in upholding international law and justice", and recalled that the European Union rests on multilateralism and on international institutions.
ICC President Tomoko Akane thanked the Parliament and said the award reaffirms the importance of independent judicial institutions. In her words, "there can be no peace without justice and no security without the rule of law."
In the same speech, Metsola mentioned Tanzanian opposition figure Tundu Lissu, imprisoned after campaigning for free elections, and Iranians Taraneh and Romina Rahimi, sentenced to death and to decades in prison respectively for protesting against the government in Tehran. All of them, she said, are part of the "Sakharov family".
The announcement drew a standing ovation from members of the EPP, S&D, Renew and Greens groups, according to NL Times.
What the US did on 9 October
On 9 October, the US State Department sanctioned the International Criminal Court as an institution, not only individuals within it, arguing that the court claims jurisdiction over crimes committed by US nationals abroad. The measure widened an earlier set of sanctions that already hit the court's prosecutors and judges.
Human Rights Watch and three other organisations filed a lawsuit in US federal court on 11 August seeking to strike the sanctions down.
In the chamber, lawmakers treated the award as a message. MEP Dirk Gotink (EPP) said he hoped it would push the European Union to take concrete steps in the face of what he called an unprecedented attack on international law. MEP Catarina Vieira (PRO) asked the bloc to go beyond the prize and do everything in its power to protect the court.
The difference between the two rounds of sanctions is the target: punishing judges and prosecutors reaches people who can be replaced, while punishing the institution reaches the contracts, accounts and services the court needs in order to operate.
The prize
Created in 1988 and named after the Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, the prize goes to individuals and organisations that defend human rights and democracy. Recent winners include Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the people of Ukraine and Iran's "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement.
With information from the European Parliament, NL Times and Human Rights Watch.
