The next escalation in the Trump administration’s confrontation with South Africa may not be another tariff, trade restriction or diplomatic rebuke. It may be directed at the benches.
The US has already crossed the threshold that matters: Washington has demonstrated that judicial office does not shield a foreign judge from personal American sanctions for conduct arising from the exercise of that authority. The question is whether South African judges will be next.
There are two precedents. In July last year the Trump administration sanctioned Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes under the Global Magnitsky Act, accusing him of human rights abuses, arbitrary detention and suppression of speech in proceedings involving former president Jair Bolsonaro. The designation was later lifted, but the die was cast: a sitting foreign supreme-court justice could be placed on the US sanctions list for exercising their judicial mandate.
The second precedent is more consequential. Trump has turned sanctions into a weapon against the International Criminal Court (ICC) itself. His February 2025 executive order authorised asset blocking and other measures against ICC personnel involved in proceedings concerning Americans or US allies. In June four ICC judges were sanctioned. In December, two more were targeted because they had participated in proceedings involving Israeli nationals. And on August 18 this year Washington sanctioned ICC president Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye.
This is not a one-off. It is an expanding doctrine. Nor did the practice begin with Trump’s second term. In 2019 his administration imposed visa restrictions on ICC personnel involved in investigating US personnel in Afghanistan; in 2020 it sanctioned ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and senior official Phakiso Mochochoko. The Biden administration lifted those measures in 2021, explicitly describing them as inappropriate and ineffective.
How does this all affect South Africa?
Washington is already constructing a sanctions architecture directed at Pretoria. HR 2633, the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act, passed the House foreign affairs committee in July last year by 34 votes to 13. It requires a review of the bilateral relationship and a list of South African government officials and ANC leaders potentially eligible for Global Magnitsky sanctions.
The Senate version, S 2752, goes further in one respect: in addition to the report identifying that list of individuals potentially eligible for sanctions, it asks for the expected timetable for imposing them, or an explanation for refusing to do so.
Most revealing is HR 4051. Its proposed sanctions provision would require Global Magnitsky sanctions against South African officials who use public office to target Israel through international courts or diplomatic platforms.
Most revealing is HR 4051. Its proposed sanctions provision would require Global Magnitsky sanctions against South African officials who use public office to target Israel through international courts or diplomatic platforms.
That is the bridge. The bills do not say “sanction South African judges”. But they establish a political principle under which South African participation in international legal proceedings concerning Israel can become grounds for personal US sanctions.
South Africa is not a peripheral actor in that legal confrontation. When Washington sanctioned four ICC judges in June 2025, Pretoria publicly condemned the measures. The trajectory should therefore be read as a sequence, not as isolated events.
First, Washington sanctioned ICC prosecutors. Then it sanctioned ICC judges. Then it sanctioned the president of the court. Separately, it sanctioned a foreign supreme court judge for the way he exercised judicial power. Meanwhile, Congress has been building a sanctions framework directed at South African officials and specifically identifying international legal action against Israel as objectionable conduct.
Imagine a South African judge becoming the face of any one of the grievances that Washington has levelled against Pretoria: a ruling on land expropriation or a more aggressive posturing on affirmative action legislation? How about a comment or two on the country’s relations with Iran or its position on Israel? The Trump administration would not need to invent a new sanctions regime.
Washington may call that the defence of sovereignty. But South Africa is sovereign too. Its judges do not derive their authority from Washington and they do not lose it when their rulings offend American foreign-policy preferences.
• Kajee is a lecturer at Southern Utah University, a nonresident research fellow at the Korea Institute for Maritime Strategy, and a researcher for the SeaLight maritime transparency initiative at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.
Business Day
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