Europe needs digital sovereignty – and Microsoft has just proven why

Summary

A quiet but deeply unsettling moment just shook the foundations of international justice, proving why Europe needs digital sovereignty - and most Europeans not too interested in tech likely missed it: The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a court based in The Hague and central to Europe’s commitment to human rights, suddenly found that his email account was shut down. The service provider? Microsoft. The reason? Mr. Trump. What happened In February, Trump sanctioned International Criminal Court (ICC) for issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant. The court argued that the Israeli politicians have committed war crimes by restricting humanitarian aid in Gaza amid the war against Hamas, thus, harming civilians. Israeli officials denied all charges, and, consequently, US President Donald Trump issued sanctions against the ICC saying that the court had committed “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”. Trump also called the warrants “baseless arrest warrants”. Following these sanctions, the ICC has found itself faced with several issues: The chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has lost access to his email; his bank accounts were frozen. American employees of the court risk arrest when traveling to the U.S. Due to the blocking of Khan’s Microsoft email account, the court is facing severe hurdles in its day-to-day work. Microsoft blocked email account based on U.S. sanction Microsoft shut down Khan’s email account. The blocking of Khan’s Microsoft email account took place because of an executive order signed by Trump which the U.S.-based company – Microsoft – fulfilled. This gets even more explosive when one considers that Microsoft - even if it wanted to - had to obey this order because of the legal and political situation. The Open-Source Business Alliance (OSBA) told Heise that it considers Microsoft’s actions to be “unprecedented in this...