On 9 October 2026 the Office of Foreign Assets Control added one line to its list of Specially Designated Nationals: “INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, Oude Waalsdorperweg 10 2597 AK, The Hague, Netherlands”, with the Court’s founding date and its Dutch VAT number. The same notice announced a settlement with a freight forwarder and took a woman in Burma off the list. The Court called it an unprecedented step, after designations against thirteen of its judges and prosecutors.

Not in so many words followed who in Europe spoke for the Court, and who for Autistici/Inventati, the Italian server collective listed in August, up to 3 October. In October the Court gained protection, some of it from Washington. The collective gained a police seizure.

Six months’ grace

OFAC issued four general licences the same morning. General License 13 allows the transactions needed to maintain or wind down the Court’s operations until 7 April 2027. It covers payments from the States Parties, salaries, health insurance, rent, utilities, taxes and “routine services”. Until April, the Court can pay its staff and its landlord. The listing itself took effect on 9 October. The licences suspend its effect on the payments and services they name.

The Dutch Foreign Minister, Tom Berendsen, said that day that the sanctions did not take effect at once and that service providers could go on serving the Court. He welcomed the six months as room for dialogue. The High Representative, Kaja Kallas, later called them “breathing space”.

The collective’s licence, General License 36, ran for thirty days and covered winding down. (Vetinari: Grace is extended only to those one expects to be negotiating with afterwards.)

Email by special permission

General License 14 has no end date. It authorises US persons to supply the Court with “services incident to the exchange of communications over the internet”. The list runs from “instant messaging, chat and email” through “blogging” and “video conferencing” to “web hosting, and domain name registration services”. Enterprise software, cloud services and cybersecurity are licenced too.

Autistici/Inventati offered email, web hosting, mailing lists, blogs and chat. Two days after its listing, the .org registry in Reston, Virginia, suspended its name. The terrorism regulations it was listed under allow messages to and from a listed party. They licence nothing like hosting or domain names.

Rome finds its pen

In February 2025 Italy did not sign a joint statement in support of the Court, and did not say why. On 9 October 2026 the Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, signed one, with his counterparts from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Italy, he told Il Messaggero, opposes the sanctions “con fermezza”, firmly.

The statement he signed says the ministers “regret and strongly disagree”. At question time on 21 October he called it a firm condemnation, and called support for the Court a central priority of Italian foreign policy. He said the government would use the six months to work for the sanctions to be lifted.

To date, no statement from the Italian government on the collective has been found.

Gewoon

On Tuesday 13 October Amsterdam police seized the collective’s server in a data centre at Science Park, on a request for mutual legal assistance from the United States. The police are making an image of it, a copy of its contents, for the American authorities. A police spokesperson told NRC that when the United States makes such a request, the police simply carry it out. The Dutch word was “gewoon”.

The public prosecutor’s office in Amsterdam told ANP that the seizure was made under the treaty between the Netherlands and the United States on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, that it had no ground to refuse, and that the data had not yet been shared. That is a criminal-law procedure, separate from the sanctions. According to Domani, the server had already been taken out of service and wiped when the collective closed.

The Dutch Cloud Community sent the police a letter asking for the legal basis. Its concern, as it put it, is that a Dutch data centre no longer protects anyone from the effects of foreign political decisions. On 16 October Barbara Kathmann (PRO) and Sarah El Boujdaini (D66) asked the Justice Minister whether the Netherlands is bound to honour such requests. Teunissen (PvdD) and Dobbe (SP) asked whether he would stop the copy going to the United States. The minister has three weeks to answer.

In August and September the Dutch government had still not said anything about the collective. The Dutch state’s first act concerning ot was carried out for Washington. (Vetinari: A state that could find nothing to say in August found, by October, a procedure.)

Four plaintiffs only

On the same Tuesday, Judge Jesse Furman of the federal court in Manhattan granted a preliminary injunction to two American organisations, DAWN and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide, and two of its members. The government may not penalise them for the conduct set out in their complaint, which includes submitting evidence to the Court and working with the Palestinian groups and the UN rapporteur Washington has sanctioned. He found the executive order likely restricts their speech by its content, in breach of the First Amendment.

He had granted the same relief to two law professors in 2025. He declined to strike the order down, or to protect anyone beyond the four. On 20 October the government consented to a permanent injunction, keeping its right to appeal.

One shot only

On 16 October the European Council asked the Commission, in Kallas’s account to Parliament, “to take all appropriate initiatives that protect the Court and the mitigation of sanctions, specifically towards EU companies so they can continue providing services to the Court”. The draft conclusions did not mention the blocking statute, on which the member states were divided.

On 20 October Kallas told Parliament that work on the statute was under way. “If we use the blocking statute, we have one shot and one shot only to get it right.” She also asked companies not to over-comply, “because the sanctions are not in effect yet”.

What the Council asked for would cover the companies that serve the Court. Kallas did not mention the collective. (Vetinari: One shot is a great many more than none, provided somebody eventually fires it.)

Pending in Pisa

The hearing on the collective’s urgent application against Banca Etica was set for 22 October. No ruling has been reported. The funds stay blocked.

The association that ran the collective cannot finish closing until they are released. Its statute requires it to own nothing when it is dissolved, and the bank still holds its money.

If Vetinari had the six months

Lord Vetinari, handed the six months, would start by reading General License 14 for whom it protects. It authorises US persons, and it names cloud services and enterprise software. The Court’s email is safe for as long as American companies want to go on selling it. He would spend the months before April moving the Court’s money and mail to suppliers who do not need the permission.

He would ask Kallas to read her sentence about over-compliance once more, with a different name in it.

He would have the Banca d’Italia write to one bank what its website already says to all of them, that an American listing does not in itself oblige anyone in Italy to freeze anything.

He would have the Dutch Justice Minister answer the written questions inside the three weeks, and put the next American request concerning a sanctioned provider before an examining judge, in public. (Vetinari: A procedure carried out as a matter of course is a decision that nobody remembers taking.)

He would not expect the six months to be enough. Six months is a long time in diplomacy and no time at all in procurement.