The group has accused the sanctions against Palestinian rights group ICC of stifling freedom of speech and expression.
WASHINGTON, DC – A new legal challenge is targeting sanctions imposed by the International Criminal Court (ICC) by President Donald Trump’s administration for trampling on the constitutional rights of American citizens.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by Washington, D.C.-based rights groups DAWN and Taxpayers Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG). Specifically, it targets sanctions imposed by the Trump administration starting in February 2025 in response to ICC arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Galant.
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Trump’s executive order at the time imposed penalties on ICC officials who participate in investigations involving the United States and its allies, particularly Israel. Organizations and individuals who supported such investigations are also targeted.
Since then, the administration has sanctioned the ICC prosecutor and judges, several Palestinian organizations that submitted evidence to the Hague-based court, and Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories.
DAWN and TAAG charge in their lawsuit that sanctions under Trump’s executive order “violate the constitutional rights of Americans to participate in human rights advocacy efforts related to Palestine.”
This includes “limiting what Americans can say before international tribunals and foreign advocates, as well as restricting their ability to interact with sanctioned parties,” the group said.
The complaint also says the Trump administration’s actions violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), passed by Congress in 1977, which “prohibits the President from using sanctions to restrict the transmission of ‘personal communications’ or ‘information or intelligence material.'”
The lawsuit comes days after the Trump administration vowed to escalate attacks on the ICC, saying it sought to “dismantle” the world’s highest international criminal court, created in 2002.
In a video statement and an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised a “whole-of-government response” to the court, saying it threatens “every aspect” of the U.S. political and legal system.
The United States is not a signatory to the ICC’s founding document, the Rome Statute, and therefore is not subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction. However, the court maintained that U.S. citizens may be investigated and prosecuted for abuses committed within the territory of members of the court. It has taken a similar position against Israel during its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
No Americans have been indicted by the ICC, but the court is still conducting public investigations into human rights abuses committed in Afghanistan during the two-decade deployment of foreign forces, including U.S. military and intelligence personnel, to the country starting in the early 2000s.
Rubio said the U.S. is considering several tactics in its approach, including applying heavy pressure on U.S. allies and aid recipient countries not to comply with the court. The administration also promised further sanctions and travel bans.
The DAWN and TAAG lawsuits are the latest to challenge sanctions.
A federal judge in New York previously sided with two law professors who argued that sanctions suppressed their First Amendment right to advise the ICC prosecutor and his office.
Sanctions against Albanians were also temporarily lifted following a court order in May, but were reimposed upon appeal by the Trump administration.
The ICC judges who were sanctioned are also filing lawsuits against the Trump administration.
DAWN Executive Director Omar Shakir said in a statement that the Trump administration is “using the blunt instrument of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights defenders, but to crack down on the political expression of millions of Americans.”
“The U.S. government has the largest megaphone in the world and is fully capable of defending its own or Israeli lawsuits,” Joseph Pace, an attorney representing DAWN and TAAG, said in a statement.
“What the government cannot do is prohibit Americans from sharing views contrary to the ICC, much less criminalize contact with non-American human rights defenders whose only ‘bad act’ is to seek justice for American and Israeli crimes.”
