ICC removes prosecutor Karim Khan after misconduct vote

Diplomatic sources said 82 of the ICC's 125 member states voted in favor of Khan's removal during a session in New York. A motion brought by Sierra Leone that would have made it harder to oust him failed. The vote effectively removes Khan from the post he had held since 2021 and concludes a disciplinary process that began earlier this year.

Khan was temporarily suspended from his duties in June, pending Friday's vote. He had already been on voluntary leave since May 2025. The Assembly had decided last month that Khan should be fired, and Friday's plenary largely followed that conclusion. Päivi Kaukoranta, president of the Assembly of States Parties, announced the body's decision.

A first for the court

The allegations first emerged roughly two years ago, when an ICC employee accused Khan of coercive sexual behavior over a 12-month period. The alleged victim, a Malaysian lawyer, spoke publicly about her complaint in a CNN interview earlier this month. Khan's lawyers have called the process that led to the vote unlawful, procedurally unfair and unsupported by evidence.

The misconduct case is the first of its kind at the ICC: never before has a sitting chief prosecutor been removed from office. The vote also comes against the backdrop of sharp political friction between the court and several of its most powerful member states, including the United States and Israel.

Political fallout

Khan's removal will have no immediate impact on the 2024 ICC arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over crimes against humanity allegations. According to the facts, those warrants can only be withdrawn by ICC judges.

Hours after Friday's vote, Venezuela announced it would withdraw from the ICC. Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Félix Plasencia said the court's actions reflect a "demonstrated geographical bias, which has disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American countries, to the detriment of the Global South." A separate ICC investigation into possible crimes committed by Venezuelan security forces under former President Nicolás Maduro will continue, according to the verified facts.

U.S. and Israeli reaction

The United States moved quickly to capitalize on the outcome. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. was launching a "sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty." Rubio said countries that "enjoy the benefits of the U.S. security umbrella" will be called upon to reject the court's jurisdiction over U.S. citizens, and that he will pressure member states to withdraw from the ICC, sanction organizations that work with the court, and ban staff from traveling to the United States.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said: "Karim Khan believed that by launching a political witch hunt against Israel and issuing a politically motivated arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu, the world would ignore the grave sexual misconduct allegations against him. He was wrong." The Trump administration has already imposed sanctions on Khan and roughly a dozen other ICC staff in retaliation for the warrants against top Israeli officials and for ICC investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

The case has also drawn comment from outside the court. Iva Vukusic, a researcher at Utrecht University following the process, said political considerations have been folded into the case, noting it is the first time a prosecutor has pursued warrants against a Western ally. The Assembly's report, attributed to its executive committee, found Khan committed "serious misconduct and serious breach of duty."

It remains unclear when, or how, the ICC will appoint Khan's successor or who will oversee the court in the interim. Earlier in the year, ICC prosecutors announced they were dropping an investigation into whether U.S. sanctions against Venezuela qualified as crimes against humanity, citing a lack of evidence.

The vote underscores both the institutional pressure the ICC faces over its highest-profile cases and the personal reckoning that led to Khan's departure. For now, the Assembly's decision closes one chapter, even as several politically charged investigations continue at the court.