Legal opposition says Trump’s ICC sanctions trample on US citizens’ rights | ICC images

The groups say sanctions against the ICC, Palestinian rights organizations restrict freedom of speech and expression.

Washington, DC – The new legal challenge is focused on the sanctions that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC), saying that they violate the rights of US citizens.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the Washington, DC-based rights group DAWN and the Taxpayers Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG). It specifically focuses on sanctions that the Trump administration began in February 2025 in response to ICC arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

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Trump’s executive order at the time sanctioned ICC officials involved in investigations involving the US and its allies, particularly Israel. Organizations or individuals who contributed to the research are also monitored.

The government has ordered several ICC judges and judges Palestinian organizations which has given evidence to the court in The Hague and the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations for the Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese.

The sanctions imposed by Trump “violate the right of the American people to participate in human rights struggles related to Palestine”, DAWN and TAAG argued in the lawsuit.

This includes “limiting what the Americans can say to the international court or to foreign representatives, and limiting their ability to interact with the host parties”, the groups said.

The lawsuit also said that the actions of the Trump administration violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which was passed by the US Congress in 1977, which “prohibits the President from using sanctions to prevent “personal communication” or the dissemination of “information or information”.

The writing comes after days of Trump’s administration he promised that he would grow up his campaign against the ICC, saying it wants to “abolish” the world’s highest court, which was established in 2002.

In a video and opinion published by The Wall Street Journal, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged “the entire government” against the court, which he said “threatens every aspect” of US politics and law.

The US is not a signatory to the ICC’s founding document, the Rome Statute, and therefore, is not subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction. But the court has emphasized that the citizens of the United States can be investigated and prosecuted for the violence that has happened in the area of ​​the members of the court. It has taken the same from Israel in its war against Palestinians in Gaza.

No US citizen has been charged by the ICC even though the court still has an open investigation into the atrocities committed in Afghanistan during the decade that saw the deployment of foreign troops that began in the early 2000s, including US troops and intelligence.

Rubio said the US is considering several options, including forcing US allies and aid recipients not to go to court. The government has also promised more sanctions and travel bans.

The DAWN and TAAG case is the latest to challenge sanctions.

A New York state judge previously sided with two law professors who said the sanctions violated their First Amendment rights under the US Constitution, which allows them to advise the ICC prosecutor and his office.

The sanctions against the Albanese were also brief promotion after a court decision in May but was reconsidered on appeal from the Trump administration.

Official ICC judges too prosecuted against the Trump administration.

In a statement, Omar Shakir, CEO of DAWN, said the Trump administration is “using an absurd tool of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights activists but also to control the politics of millions of Americans”.

“The U.S. government has the biggest megaphone in the world and can hold its own — or Israel’s — accountable,” Joseph Pace, an attorney representing DAWN and TAAG, said in a statement.

“What it won’t do is prevent Americans from sharing views against the ICC, and prevent contact with non-American human rights activists whose only ‘crime’ was seeking justice for US and Israeli crimes.”