Four major human rights organizations have filed a new lawsuit with the International Criminal Court against the Trump administration’s campaign.
A new lawsuit filed Tuesday charges that the administration’s sweeping sanctions against international tribunals and organizations that cooperate with them risk trampling on the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and groups. This is in addition to several previous legal challenges making similar claims.
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Four U.S.-based organizations – the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and the Open Society Institute – denounced the sanctions as “forcing widespread reductions in human rights and legal activities.” That, in turn, violates constitutional rights, including the right to free speech and due process.
The lawsuit also accuses Trump of overstepping his presidential powers “based on a pseudo-‘national emergency’ with no basis in fact,” according to a statement from Human Rights Watch.
“The U.S. government’s efforts to dismantle the ICC and punish those seeking justice for gross human rights violations are harming far more than the individuals and entities facing sanctions. This is an insult to all victims and survivors of war crimes and genocide,” said Joyce Ajrony, general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee.
“This executive order is intended to intimidate human rights defenders and prevent people of conscience from advocating for the rights and dignity of others. We are joining this lawsuit because we refuse to remain silent when the pursuit of justice is criminalized.”
After taking office last year, President Trump escalated his approach to the ICC, issuing a comprehensive executive order in February 2025 authorizing sanctions against the court’s prosecutors, judges, other employees, and individuals and entities assisting the court in its investigations.
The executive order specifically mentioned the court-issued arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza and the ongoing investigation into possible abuses by foreign forces, including U.S. military and intelligence personnel, in Afghanistan.
Since then, several ICC judges and prosecutors have been sanctioned by the United States, along with a range of Palestinian rights groups that have submitted evidence to the court. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese also imposed sanctions.
Separate from the earlier lawsuit brought by Washington, D.C.-based rights groups DAWN and Taxpayers Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG), ICC judges and Albanese’s family had previously sued the Trump administration over sanctions, including a travel ban and asset restrictions.
Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the court of “waging war against our country not with bullets and missiles, but with the power of statutes, treaties, and so-called international law” and pledged to step up the US pressure campaign to “nullify” the ICC.
He promised to increase “monitoring” of how countries receiving U.S. aid approach the courts and toughen penalties against officials. At least one member state, Chad, cited pressure from the US government when recently announcing its withdrawal from the court.
International law experts said the timing of the announcement was puzzling, noting that other than the long-stalled Afghanistan investigation, no Americans are currently under investigation by the court. No U.S. nationals have ever been indicted by the ICC.
The United States is not a signatory to the ICC’s founding charter, the Rome Statute, so it is not subject to the court’s jurisdiction, but human rights violations committed within the territory of member states can be investigated and prosecuted.
Federal judges in Maine and New York ruled last year that President Trump’s ICC executive order violated the constitutional rights of individual advocates and scholars to provide expertise to the court.
In the latest lawsuit, the four human rights organizations said the sanctions prevented them from “continuing or undertaking activities such as representing victims of war crimes, submitting legal and policy proposals to the ICC, and working with sanctioned Palestinian human rights organizations to take on cases, coordinate advocacy campaigns, investigate human rights violations, and provide humanitarian assistance.”
Due to the dominance of American financial and technology companies, sanctions are also chilling organizations that do not operate in the United States, he said.
“These sanctions are an attack on the rule of law, independent judges and prosecutors, and civil society in the United States and around the world,” James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, said in a statement.
“They are a betrayal of historic American leadership in the cause of international justice and a slap in the face to victims and survivors of serious crimes around the world who rely on the ICC as their court of last resort.”
