Rights Groups Sue Trump Administration Over ICC Sanctions

Four prominent US human rights organizations sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, arguing its sanctions regime against the International Criminal Court amounts to a "blatantly illegal attack on international justice."

The American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Institute filed the suit in federal court, challenging Trump's February 2025 executive order authorizing sanctions on ICC officials, judges and others supporting the court's investigations, including one into Israeli crimes in Palestine.

The order followed the ICC prosecutor's November 2024 arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over crimes in Gaza. The US responded by sanctioning ICC prosecutors, judges, three Palestinian human rights groups and UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

The lawsuit says the sanctions violate constitutional protections for free speech and association and US obligations under international law by criminalizing collaboration with the court. Individuals sanctioned have faced travel bans and frozen bank accounts, effects that have rippled through global financial and technology systems dominated by US institutions.

Katherine Gallagher, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the administration "took the extraordinary step to not only deny Palestinians and victims of US torture equal access to justice, but to criminalize and punish them, their lawyers and advocates, and their partners." She said she has stopped practicing before the ICC because of the risk of prosecution.

Shawan Jabarin, director of the Palestinian group Al Haq, one of the sanctioned organizations, previously told the Guardian the sanctions left roughly 45 staffers unpaid and created a climate of fear that caused longtime US partners to cut ties.

James Goldston of the Open Society Justice Initiative called the sanctions "an assault on the rule of law, independent judges and prosecutors, and civil society."

The suit follows earlier legal challenges from Democracy in the Arab World Now, the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide, and sanctioned individuals including Albanese's family and three sitting ICC judges. The State Department and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.