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MANHATTAN (CN) — Two human rights advocacy groups sued the Trump administration Wednesday, accusing the feds of violating constitutional free speech protections by penalizing International Criminal Court judges who called to investigate Israeli war crimes.
The groups’ civil complaint, filed in New York federal court, comes two days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged in a video statement to “dismantle” the Hague-based International Criminal Court, and urged other countries to withdraw as the Trump administration significantly escalates its pressure campaign against the international tribunal.
Represented by New York City attorney Joseph Pace, the two groups — Democracy for the Arab World Now and Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide — argue Trump’s Executive Order 14203 from February 2025 potentially subjects them to criminal prosecution and civil penalties because their beliefs that the ICC should investigate “alleged atrocity crimes by the United States and Israel.”
The order invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers to sanction any foreign person who assists the ICC’s investigation, arrest, or prosecution of U.S. or Israeli persons.
The two groups describe the administration’s recent sanctions of 11 ICC prosecutors and judges in retaliation for their role authorizing the offending investigations involving Israel as “a quintessential example of viewpoint discrimination.”
The groups argue in the complaint that the sanctions are predicated on “spurious” declaration of a “national emergency,” and should be invalid on their face.
“The list of potential abuses is virtually endless,” the groups write. “A future president could even declare a ‘national emergency’ with respect to Israel’s human rights abuses, designate anyone who opposes the ICC’s investigations targeting Israeli nationals, and firewall Israel’s supporters in the United States from its supporters abroad."
The sanctions have already had a chilling effect the groups’ advocacy and set a troubling precedent, the plaintiffs add.
“If the executive is permitted to blow past constitutional and statutory restraints here, there is little to stop it from weaponizing IEEPA to target other disfavored viewpoints,” the groups write in the complaint. “A future president could, for example, declare a ‘national emergency’ over high energy prices, designate foreign environmental groups that campaign against fossil fuel extraction, and cut off American climate advocates from their overseas partners — or, conversely, declare an emergency over climate change and use IEEPA designations to bar U.S. industry groups from supporting or collaborating with foreign groups opposed to decarbonization policies.”
Rubio, a three-term Florida senator and onetime presidential primary challenger to Trump, accused the ICC on Monday of “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles,” but with “the force of so-called international law.”
In addition to Trump and Rubio, the groups also name as co-defendants: the U.S. Department of State, Department of Treasury, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Department of Justice, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Office of Asset Control and its director, Bradley T. Smith.
Representatives for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wedensday.
The tribunal issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and a senior Hamas official for war crimes and crimes against humanity, which focused on Israel’s use of starvation as a war crime — pointing to “arbitrary” closings of border crossings and cutting off water and electricity to the Gaza Strip following attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
Three months after the ICC brought the charges, Trump signed Executive Order 14203 on Feb. 6, 2025, after the ICC pursued investigations involving U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza. The order declared a national emergency and authorized sanctions against foreign nationals involved in ICC investigations or prosecutions targeting U.S. citizens or nationals of allied countries that do not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.
The administration first sanctioned ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan before expanding the list to include the court’s two deputy prosecutors, eight judges, U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and three Palestinian human rights organizations: Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
Last month, three ICC judges sued Trump in New York federal court, arguing they were punished simply for a case they decided. They are asking a judge to remove them from the U.S. sanctions list, unblock any frozen property and bar the government from enforcing the measures against them.
The International Criminal Court, created in 2002 to prosecute people accused of the world’s gravest crimes when national courts cannot or will not act, is the world’s only permanent international criminal tribunal.
Neither Israel nor the United States is a party to the international treaty that established the ICC. Russia is also not a member, and its President Vladimir Putin has been the subject of an ICC arrest warrant since March 2023.
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