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Opinion

The clock is ticking: Europe is running out of time to save the International Criminal Court

By Christine Van den Wyngaert

Antwerp

9 November 2026 12:59

The European Commission has so far been cautious about using the EU’s Blocking Statute to protect the International Criminal Court (ICC) from US sanctions. On 14 October, it said discussions were continuing. Nine days later, it advised European companies to continue providing services to the Court, relying on temporary US authorisations and ongoing diplomacy. That is not a durable strategy.

On 9 October, the Trump administration placed the ICC itself on the US sanctions list.

Europe must now decide whether it is prepared to defend the independence of an international court in practice, not just in words.

The immediate deadline is 7 April 2027. The broad US general licence currently authorising transactions necessary to maintain the Court’s operations expires on that date.

It covers essential activities such as salaries, insurance, contributions by States Parties and routine commercial services. Three other US licences cover more specific areas, including telecommunications and software, pensions and certain transactions involving ICC detainees.

They do not share the same expiry date. But General License 13 provides the broad operational breathing space on which the Court currently depends.

Washington has presented this six-month period as an opportunity for States Parties to address its concerns. These include withdrawing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, formally closing the Afghanistan investigation insofar as it concerns alleged crimes by US personnel, and changing the Rome Statute to prevent the Court from exercising jurisdiction over US nationals, even where alleged crimes are committed on the territory of a State Party.

The principle at stake is fundamental: the ICC’s jurisdiction is established by law, not by the political preferences of governments. A court forced to trade judicial independence for the ability to operate cannot fulfil its mandate.

Read more

EU bets on diplomacy, not blocking statute, to protect ICC from Trump sanctions

A political opening in Washington

The Democrats have won control of both chambers of the US Congress in the midterm elections. The new Congress takes office in January.

President Donald Trump retains his veto, so a legislative reversal of the sanctions is unlikely. But an opposition-controlled Congress can hold hearings, exercise oversight and scrutinise the costs of the sanctions for American banks and technology companies.

Brussels should not assume that the Democrats are natural allies. In January 2025, 45 House Democrats voted for a Republican bill to sanction the ICC. Senate Democrats subsequently blocked it, partly because of concerns about its breadth and its consequences for US businesses and allies.

Europe’s strongest argument in Washington is therefore not simply defence of the Netanyahu arrest warrants. It is that a president is using emergency economic powers to target an independent court and the companies that serve it, damaging American interests and relations with its allies.

The pressure goes further. In July, at a closed-door meeting of Nato ambassadors in Brussels, US ambassador Matthew Whitaker urged allies to withdraw from the Rome Statute and end material support for the ICC, according to reporting on a US diplomatic document. This was an American demand, not a Nato position. Every Nato member except the United States and Türkiye is a party to the Rome Statute. They should not be pressured into abandoning their commitment to the Court.

The legal instrument Brussels must prepare

The EU Blocking Statute, Regulation 2271/96, protects European operators against the extraterritorial application of specified foreign laws. It prohibits companies within its scope from complying with listed sanctions. But it cannot eliminate the commercial risks for companies exposed to the US market, nor guarantee that Washington will not retaliate.

The Dutch foreign minister, Tom Berendsen, has called it a “nuclear option”, while insisting that Europe should prepare to use it. That distinction matters. Preparing the instrument does not mean activating it immediately. It means ensuring that Europe can act quickly if diplomacy fails.

There is a legal step Brussels cannot avoid: the US measures do not automatically fall within the Statute’s current scope.

The commission must prepare a delegated act adding the relevant measures to its annex, subject to the applicable EU scrutiny procedures. That work should begin now, not in the weeks before the deadline.

There is already a political mandate. The European Council has reaffirmed support for the ICC and called for uninterrupted access to financial and other services. France has said it is prepared to support the use of the Blocking Statute if necessary; Belgium has called for the commission to prepare for its possible activation.

The European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee has backed activation and practical protection for the Court, while the ICC has been named the 2026 Sakharov Prize laureate.

Read more

International Criminal Court wins EU’s top human rights prize in defiance of Trump’s sanctions

On 23 October, the commission advised operators to continue providing services, noting that General License 13 currently authorises necessary transactions and that SEPA payments rely on European infrastructure.

These are welcome steps, but they do not provide a lasting safeguard once the broad US licence expires.

Read more

‘Bullies cannot be appeased’: Pressure mounts on EU to shield ICC from new US sanctions

What Europe should do

Prepare the legal instrument. The commission should draft the delegated act adding the relevant US measures to the Blocking Statute’s annex, consult Member States and complete the preparatory work well ahead of April. Preparation is not activation; it gives Europe the option to act without delay.

Protect European service providers. Banks, insurers, payment providers and IT companies need clear guidance and political backing if they are targeted. The commission and member states should identify vulnerable services and ensure the Court can continue paying staff, receiving contributions and maintaining essential infrastructure.

Build an international coalition. Nine countries — Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — have issued a joint declaration supporting the Court. The coalition should expand to include other EU members and the nine non-EU countries that aligned themselves with the EU statement: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway and Ukraine. Together, they could coordinate financial, insurance and IT support, share the costs of essential services and assist staff and providers exposed to sanctions. The challenge is to turn political solidarity into practical protection.

Talk to Washington but draw a red line. The Rome Statute already recognises the primacy of genuine national investigations and prosecutions through the principle of complementarity. Dialogue is essential, but concessions on the Court’s jurisdiction or arrest warrants are not acceptable. Nor should Europe entertain amendments that place powerful states and their nationals beyond the reach of international criminal justice.

Take the case to Capitol Hill. European governments should engage the incoming congressional leadership, relevant committee chairs and American companies. The argument should focus on the costs to US businesses, the interests of allies and the damage to the rule of law. The immediate request should be to extend the broad general licence and keep the Court’s essential operations authorised.

The midterms have created an opening, not a guarantee of change. Congress may scrutinise the sanctions, but Europe cannot rely on it to reverse them. The choice is not between diplomacy and defending the ICC. Europe must do both. Preparing its legal and practical safeguards is what will make diplomacy credible.

If Brussels waits for Washington to change course, it may discover that the temporary authorisation has expired before Europe has a response. The question is no longer whether Europe supports the ICC. It is whether it is prepared to act before time runs out.

What the Nvidia CEO story means for US national security

Ian Bremmer

November 09, 2026

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In this Quick Take, Ian Bremmer breaks down the New York Times investigation into Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang‘s relationship with a Chinese tech executive that the US government believes was a spy for China.

Ian explains that the US government has held this belief for about a year, though the evidence has not been made public. He notes that Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw a report on the concerns that was given to the president. Huang was later added at the last minute to President Donald Trump’s trip to China with American CEOs.

Ian also questions Nvidia’s argument that selling chips to China gives the U.S. more influence. He says China already sees the US as able to cut off access for political reasons, and is working to catch up on semiconductors. Ian expects major investigations from the US government. He says that if the White House tries to bury the matter, he expects leaks from security services and from Democrats on key committees.

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• Sangita Myska: If China can honey-trap tech bros, it can do it in Britain. We have fragile male egos too

Sangita Myska: If China can honey-trap tech bros, it can do it in Britain. We have fragile male egos too

As too many recent cases remind us – remember Prince Andrew’s aide? – Beijing is undertaking influence operations in this country. Protecting ourselves without cutting ties completely is not easy, writes the Nerve’s political commentator

Sangita Myska

Nov 10, 2026

In the big-tech arms race between the United States and China, it appears the most powerful weapon of all may be human frailty.

The CEO and co-founder of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, is being investigated by his own company after admitting to an affair with an executive suspected of being a Chinese spy.

The 63-year-old, who has quite the cult following among sweaty-leather-loving tech geeks, is credited with turning Nvidia into a corporate behemoth and the most powerful AI business in the world. It has delivered the US a competitive advantage over its international rivals. Huang’s chipmaker, which makes the tech that powers artificial intelligence, is now worth more than $4tn and has been described by the New York Times as “the engine of the data centre boom powering the US economy”. Huang’s importance to Nvidia’s strategic direction is such that the company’s share price tumbled a whopping 10%, wiping billions off its value, as traders freaked out over his possible professional demise. Huang is one of Donald Trump’s closest AI advisers – leading to accusations that the president overlooked security concerns arising from the affair at exactly the same time as Huang was urging a loosening of export controls to China.

Across the pond, it’s been wall-to-wall coverage of the motherboard of all sex scandals – producing coverage that‘s a mix of FT meets PopBitch. While the affair and its implications remain under investigation, the fear is that this is a classic honey-trap in which a rich, powerful man is lured into sharing nationally important trade secrets over pillow-talk.

This summer, a Border Force officer and his Chinese  “handler” were jailed for spying on Hong Kong pro-democracy dissidents in the UK

In the UK, parliamentarians have been the focus of China’s intelligence services for some time. Among those targeted was shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat, who, speaking on the BBC this week, suggested it was possible that the family of Huang’s lover may have been threatened in order to force her to become a spy – something the Chinese government strongly denies. Tugendhat was one of a number of British politicians and human rights activists previously sanctioned by the Chinese government for their vocal criticism of the oppression of Uyghur Muslims.

Iain Duncan-Smith was another of those sanctioned. The former Tory leader previously told me three years ago he believed that China presented a “systemic threat” to the UK and lamented the fact that it viewed our country as “soft and weak”. It’s hard not to agree, especially in a post-Brexit era in which the UK has become desperate for trade deals that might boost our struggling economy. Government data makes depressing reading: while the value of UK trade with China is steadily increasing, our trade deficit with the world’s manufacturing superpower remains at a staggering £49bn a year. That means they make significantly more money out of us than we make out of them. It also means that scaling back or even temporarily disengaging diplomatically with China in response to threats – as Duncan-Smith demands – is almost impossible.

This presents one obvious problem: given its upper hand, how audacious would the Chinese government be while operating on UK soil? As it turns out: very. This summer, when the high court was rubber-stamping a highly controversial Chinese-mega embassy, a Border Force officer and his “handler” were jailed for spying on Hong Kong pro-democracy dissidents in the UK. Last year, Matthew Collins, the UK’s deputy national security adviser, warned that China’s intelligence services were carrying out “large-scale espionage operations” that threatened the UK’s economy and security after the failed prosecution of two suspected Chinese spies; and a year before that, an alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, engaged in what appeared to be a full-on bromance with ex-Prince Andrew’s top aide. Court papers revealed that the aide had sent “fawning letters” to Tengbo in which the ex-royal was described as “desperate”. So effective was the alleged espionage operation that Tengbo was authorised to act on the ex-prince’s behalf in what has been described as “an international financial initiative” involving Chinese investors.

All this is to say that if the Chinese Communist party can get an alleged spy into the top tier of the British establishment, what’s to stop it infiltrating the top tier of management of an infrastructure-critical UK corporation? From the looks of it, relatively little. In 2023, Tugendhat – then minister for security – helped introduce the National Security Act 2023, which created a framework for countering state threats. While the strongest powers under the act were applied to Russia and Iran, China remains exempt. Both this Labour government and the last Tory one continue to tread the same difficult diplomatic path, the official line being: “The current government has said that while it acknowledges the threats from China, and will continue to counter them, it must continue to work with China to pursue a strong economic relationship.”

There is a grim reality to this position. Britain is, after all, a middling power that has to perform a diplomatic high-wire act: on one hand, recognising and managing our economic dependency on China while defending us against its proven desire to meddle in UK politics and threaten our national security. Nevertheless, there are things the UK government can do, including recognising that the threat from China is on par with that from Russia and Iran, clarifying British red lines and significantly boosting investment in anti-espionage units. The alleged Huang honey-trap alongside a seduction-of-sorts of a former royal with an alleged spy should act as a timely reminder that it’s often the fragile egos of rich and influential men that could provide the UK’s rivals with the softest target of all.

Sangita Myska is an award-winning journalist and presenter best known for her political and social commentary. She writes a twice-monthly column for the Nerve

Hegseth comes out swinging

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth holds a press conference at the Pentagon today. Photo: Nathan Howard/AP Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lambasted Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) push to oust him today, Axios’ Avery Lotz reports. Massie introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth yesterday over his handling of the Iran war and other alleged misconduct Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon this morning: “They impeached President Trump over a perfect phone call. They impeached him again in his final week in office,” referencing Trump’s first impeachment over a phone call in which he pressed Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his second over the Jan. 6 attack. “Both times, he came back stronger, and the American people sent him back to the White House. Now they’re trying a third time. This time against a member of his Cabinet.” “They will fail again, and if standing with President Trump puts me in that company, I’ll take that company every day of the week.” Hegseth also defended controversial U.S. military operations in Iran, Venezuela and the Caribbean. “We sank the boats carrying poison into our communities. We put a narco dictator in handcuffs. These are not high crimes. This is the job, and it’s the job well done.” President Trump gave Hegseth’s performance “an ‘A’ PLUS, PLUS, PLUS” in a Truth Social post. Go deeper.

Nov 8, 2026 #YuvalNoahHarari#Superintelligence#Future

AI is on the cusp of achieving superintelligence that is beyond anything humans can comprehend. It might be able to solve new mathematical problems, find a cure for cancer, or tackle climate change. But anything able to do so will be, by definition, far more intelligent than us.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

1940 film

Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Fantasia

Disney Videohttps://video.disney.com › watch › sorcerer-s-apprentic…

Apprentice Mickey labors with heavy buckets of water while the Sorcerer works his magic — until Mickey has a bright idea that ends in chaos.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Disney Wiki – Fandom

Disney Wikihttps://disney.fandom.com › The_Sorcerer’s_Apprentice

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the third and most famous segment in Disney’s 1940 animated feature film Fantasia, it stars Mickey Mouse as the apprentice of the …

Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice | Trailer A (Official)

YouTube · Walt Disney Studios Philippines7.2K+ views · 16 years ago

Dave (JAY BARUCHEL) is just an average college student, or so it appears, until the sorcerer Balthazar Blake (NICOLAS CAGE) recruits him as his …

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (S) (1940)

Filmaffinityhttps://www.filmaffinity.com › film492955

Mickey Mouse, the young apprentice of the sorcerer Yen Sid, attempts some of his master’s magic tricks but doesn’t know how to control them.

7.6/10(12,824)

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Fantasia Wiki – Fandom

Fandomhttps://disneyfantasia.fandom.com › wiki › The_Sorc…

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the third and most famous segment in Disney’s 1940 animated feature film, Fantasia, and the only returning segment in its sequel, …

Nov 9, 2026 #Nvidia#JensenHuang#QuickTake

In this Quick Take, Ian Bremmer breaks down the New York Times investigation into Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with a Chinese tech executive that the US government believes was a spy for China. Subscribe to GZERO’s YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔): / @gzeromedia Subscribe to Ian Bremmer’s YouTube channel

Archaeological finds at an Irish fort reveal insights into the finer side of medieval life

Published: November 9, 2026 3.50pm GMT

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Popular media, from computer games to movies, often portrays medieval life as being dominated by fighters and farmers. In these depictions, there’s little evidence of a world beyond political struggle and simple subsistence.

Leisure activities are often overlooked, despite the fact that they existed in one form or another at most – if not all – levels of medieval society. The intangible nature of much of the evidence, often coupled with poor preservation of physical objects, can help explain this.

However, when conditions are right, archaeological remains can shed light on the extra-curricular activities of medieval folk. My colleagues and I found abundant evidence of life’s luxuries at the site of Caherconnell Cashel in the Burren region of western Ireland.

Caherconnell Cashel was a farmstead of houses and workshops enclosed within a well-preserved circular dry stone wall. Such settlements are also known as ringforts and generally housed a single family (possibly multiple generations). Caherconnell was a large ringfort; the home of wealthy local rulers from the late 10th century AD to the early 17th century. Our recently concluded excavations revealed all aspects of life at this well-preserved family settlement.

While activities such as fighting, farming, industry and crafts were clearly represented in material recovered from the site, so too were the less mundane activities of game playing, literacy, and music.

Games, pens and harps

The true extent of game playing is undoubtedly lost in the perishable nature of the materials used extensively in such pursuits – such as wood, leather and textiles. At Caherconnell, however, surviving evidence includes small gaming pieces made of bone and antler, metal, clay and stone.

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One of the more complete finds was an 11th-century barrel-shaped and polished antler gaming piece. A bronze peg or stem runs through its hollow core and projects from its base. It originally had a plate or cap at the top, the loss of which may have resulted in the piece being discarded or set aside for repair.

Pegged game pieces like this were used in the Saxon and Viking board game of hnefatafl, a game that appeared in Ireland around the 9th or 10th century AD. Hnefatafl, and other games like it, provided both strategy training and entertainment.

Evidence of literacy at Caherconnell includes writing implements and associated equipment. One of our most remarkable finds was an 11th-century pen made from bone and bronze. The slender hollow bone shaft or barrel was probably made from the bone of a wader bird or swan.

Experimental work by the archaeologist Adam Parsons found that the closest match was a swan radius (a tubular bone) from the right-side wing. Inserted into the narrow end of the barrel is a tapering bronze point or nib.

The Caherconnell pen finds no exact comparisons within Ireland or elsewhere; its early secular context is also, so far, unique. Until now, evidence of early literacy in Ireland has been largely confined to monastic and related church sites. At Caherconnell, the pen may have been used in general record keeping and external communications.

However, it also reminds us that literate occupants of Caherconnell Cashel may have enjoyed composing, reading, and sharing ancestral pedigrees, praise poetry and epic tales “of gods and fighting men”.

The musical sounds of a settlement are rarely represented in its archaeological record. Wood, a common material in the construction of various instruments, rarely survives to the present day.

Metal and bone fittings, however, have been found during excavations, including at Caherconnell, where bone and bronze tuning pegs were among the finds. Two of the tuning pegs are readily identifiable as components of stringed instruments.

They have a circular sectioned shaft that splays slightly into a rectangular sectioned turning block at one end (now missing from the larger bone example). The opposite end pinches in slightly and is perforated by a small circular hole through which the string was attached.

The bone tuning peg, being a relatively soft material, still bears impressions from the wire-string of the instrument. Both date to the 11th century, but they are clearly from different instruments.

One had strong bronze pegs, the other had larger bone versions. Outside Ireland, shorter tuning pegs are commonly associated with lyres, lutes and fiddles (up to 65mm is classed as short).

No lutes or fiddles survive from early Ireland, however. Nor are there any written references to, or depictions of them. The lyre, on the other hand, is represented. Depictions are found in several ecclesiastical contexts and early Irish literature confirms that lyres or lyre-like instruments were also used outside religious settings.

Music, and accompanying songs and poetry, probably fulfilled various social, political, and cultural functions. These range from proclaiming the magnificence of the nobility to entertaining a family around their hearth in the evening.

Life at Caherconnell was, in many ways, very traditional. It was a place where ancestry and heritage were valued, yet it was also a place connected to the outside world. In leisure, as in so many other facets of their lives, the occupants encountered, adopted, and no doubt adapted the most desirable elements of a wider cultural realm.

It is clear from this one site that those with more leisure time, often the wealthier in society, filled that time with various recreational pursuits. However, human nature suggests that all classes engaged in such activities, albeit often in a manner that’s less visible to archaeologists.

After all, you didn’t need a fancy bronze and antler game set to play games, writing equipment to create stories, or peg-tuned wired instruments to compose and sing a song. Such things just prove the existence of these activities, not how commonplace they were.

• Ireland
• Archaeology
• Medieval

Author

1. Michelle ComberLecturer in Archaeology, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies, University of Galway

Disclosure statement

The Caherconnell excavations were funded by the Caherconnell Archaeology Field School, and some of its post-excavation analyses by Ireland’s National Monuments Service via a Royal Irish Academy research-excavation grant.

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University of Galway provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.64628/AB.n4fx75xwk

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1775

Birth of the U.S. Marine Corps

HISTORY.com Editors

Naval Historical Center

Published: November 13, 2009 Last Updated: November 05, 2026

During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress passes a resolution stating that “two Battalions of Marines be raised” for service as landing forces for the recently formed Continental Navy. The resolution, drafted by future U.S. president John Adams and adopted in Philadelphia on November 10, 1775, created the Continental Marines and is now observed as the birth date of the United States Marine Corps.

Serving on land and at sea, the original U.S. Marines distinguished themselves in a number of important operations during the Revolutionary War. The first Marine landing on a hostile shore occurred when a force of Marines under Captain Samuel Nicholas captured New Providence Island in the Bahamas from the British in March 1776. Nicholas was the first commissioned officer in the Continental Marines and is celebrated as the first Marine commandant. After American independence was achieved in 1783, the Continental Navy was demobilized and its Marines disbanded.

US Marine Corps Veteran Jack McDowell Recalls Boot Camp at Montford Point

U.S. Marine Corps Veteran Jack McDowell recalls his experiences as a new recruit during boot camp at Montford Point, North Carolina.

In the next decade, however, increasing conflict at sea with Revolutionary France led the U.S. Congress to establish formally the U.S. Navy in May 1798. Two months later, on July 11, President John Adams signed the bill establishing the U.S. Marine Corps as a permanent military force under the jurisdiction of the Department of Navy.

U.S. Marines saw action in the so-called Quasi-War with France and then fought against the Barbary pirates of North Africa during the first years of the 19th century. Since then, Marines have participated in all the wars of the United States and in most cases were the first soldiers to fight. In all, Marines have executed more than 300 landings on foreign shores.

Today, there are more than 215,000 active-duty and reserve Marines operating from 35-plus major bases and installations. These include Camp Pendleton in California, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia and Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan. The motto of the service is Semper Fidelis, meaning “Always Faithful” in Latin.

Nov 9, 2026

Was the freedom America surrendered after 9/11 worth it? 👉 https://www.youtube.com/live/qg9y9IfL…

Democrats delivered a sweeping victory in the 2026 midterms. But did Donald Trump and the Republicans just lose something far more important than control of Congress? Veteran Democratic strategist and former Bill Clinton senior advisor Doug Sosnik joins Michael Smerconish to break down the election results, explain why the Democratic wave wasn’t even larger, and reveal how America’s political landscape may be undergoing a historic transformation.

Sosnik argues that Republicans squandered a generational opportunity to expand their coalition, while Democrats now have a second chance to win back working-class voters. Could traditionally Republican states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Iowa become competitive in 2028? And does the Democrats’ victory represent genuine support for their party or simply a rejection of Trump? Michael and Doug examine the education divide, the impact of Trump’s economic policies, and what both parties must learn before the next presidential election.