With a Slovenian judge on the blacklist, calls for the EU to activate laws to block the sanctions are mounting.It was a consequential case of deja-vu in The Hague on Thursday, as the US issued fresh sanctions against judges at the International Criminal Court over what it calls "illegitimate actions targeting the United States and Israel.

The sanctions imposed on Thursday, in part over the ICC arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, come as Washington ramps up its efforts to neuter the court

The European Union on Friday threw its support behind the world’s top war crimes court, the International Criminal Court, after the United States sanctioned four of its judges in retaliation for having issued an international arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and for opening an alleged war crimes case into US troops in Afghanistan.