Sovereignty incidents — cloud & data
Microsoft / ICC email block of Karim Khan (February–May 2025)
Claim
After the US Treasury imposed sanctions in February 2025 on International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan — in response to ICC investigations into Israeli officials — Khan’s Microsoft email was switched off. The ICC then moved its office and teamwork software to OpenDesk, a free, open-source platform from Germany’s Centre for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS). Microsoft has disputed some accounts of how events unfolded.
Sources
- Associated Press reporting, February–May 2025
- Computer Weekly, “Microsoft’s ICC email block reignites European data sovereignty concerns,” 23 May 2025 ↗
- Xinhua, “Microsoft email block of ICC prosecutor fuels Dutch alarm over US tech dependence,” 20 May 2025 ↗
- Lindsay Clark, “Microsoft throws spox under the bus in ICC email flap,” The Register, 18 February 2026 ↗
Referenced in
- Framework §2
- AI-SAF-C Infrastructure
- Refining §3.3