On June 19th, 2017, American Otto Warmbier died six days after returning to the U.S. from North Korea.

Otto was arrested in North Korea for allegedly attempting to steal a political propaganda poster. His sentence was 15 years of hard labor. Not only is this sentence unnecessarily harsh, but it is also breaches Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. North Korea stated that its reasoning for the harsh sentence was in response to U.S. sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear activities. It is likely that North Korea hoped to have these sanctions lifted and in return, they would give back Otto. This is essentially them taking a hostage.