[4] On 2 September 2020, Bensouda was named a "specially designated national" by the United States government under the Trump administration, forbidding all U.S. persons and companies from doing business with her.

[5] The Biden administration reversed course on 2 April 2021 when President Joe Biden revoked EO 13928, removing Bensouda from the SDN list;[6] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement calling the previous sanctions "inappropriate and ineffective",[7] but restated that Washington would continue opposing ICC's actions relating to Afghanistan and the Palestinian conflict.

[13] Bensouda began her career as state counsel in 1987 in her native country of The Gambia, and then Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions in February 1994 for Sir Dawda Jawara's government.

[13] When President Yahya Jammeh took power in a military coup in July 1994, Bensouda played a central role in the early years of his administration.

Bensouda’s time under Jammeh's rule has earned her a fair share of criticism, with many accusing her of turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the Gambian dictator.

On 8 August 2004, she was elected as Deputy Prosecutor (Prosecutions) with an overwhelming majority of votes by the Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court.

[26] According to an Associated Press report on 6 November 2015, Bensouda was advised that war crimes may have been committed on the ship MV Mavi Marmara in 2010, when eight Turks and one Turkish-American were killed and several other activists were wounded by Israeli commandos, but she ruled that the case was not serious enough to merit an investigation on behalf of the ICC.

However, Afghanistan did ratify the Rome Statute, and thus crimes committed on its territory by anyone, even if he or she is a citizen of a country that did not accept the ICC's legitimacy, is subject to its jurisdiction.

[29] In April 2018 following the 2017-2018 Rohingya Crisis in which hundreds of thousands of mostly-Muslim Rohingya people in western Myanmar's Rakhine State were attacked or driven from their homes by government and civilian attackers, in alleged ethnic cleansing and genocide — Bensouda sought a ruling from the ICC that it had jurisdiction over the crisis, despite Myanmar having never ratified the Rome Statute.

[33] Bensouda and her family were reportedly threatened directly by the then Mossad director Yossi Cohen in an attempt to dissuade her from opening war crime inquiries against Israel.

[34] Less than a month before handing over her post to her successor, Karim Khan, she declared in a podcast: "Something I have experienced is pressure, attacks and politicization [but] what we do in this office is critically important," adding, "History will judge us.

[47] In December 2014, the Togolese magazine Africa Top Success named her "African of the Year", ahead of Isabel dos Santos, Angélique Kidjo, Lupita Nyong'o, Daphne Mashile-Nkosi and Koki Mutungi.

[51][52] The Guardian reported that the visa withdrawal seemed to be the fulfillment of a threat from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to prevent ICC personnel from investigating whether U.S. servicemen or U.S. officials engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan, Poland, Romania and Lithuania.

[56] In June 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order that allowed the United States to block assets of ICC employees, and prevent them and their immediate families from entering the country.

[57] On 4 April 2021, it was reported that the United States Government had officially lifted the sanctions against Bensouda and Mochochoko, and visa restrictions against other ICC personnel.