(CNN) — Two US nonprofits have sued the Trump administration over sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) — penalties that they say “violate Americans’ constitutional right to engage in Palestine-related” human rights advocacy.
Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an organization that promotes democracy and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa, and the Taxpayers Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG) filed a lawsuit Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court seeking to bar the Trump administration from using an executive order “to prevent US citizens from supporting investigations into US and Israeli abuses,” according to a statement released by the two organizations. Those measures “muzzle Palestine advocacy,” the statement added.
An executive order issued by US President Donald Trump in February 2025 authorizes punitive measures against ICC staffers, such as sanctions and bans on entering the United States, because of what the administration described as “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
Several other challenges to the ICC sanctions have been filed to date, but this lawsuit is the first that aims to stop Trump-appointed officials from using sanctions law to “bar Americans from supporting the ICC’s investigations into US and Israeli atrocity crimes, or from working with (UN special human rights envoy Francesca Albanese) and the sanctioned Palestinian NGOs,” the organizations’ statement said.
Those sanctions “unconstitutionally restrict Americans from seeking justice on Palestine at the ICC and working with human rights defenders designated solely for calling on the ICC to investigate Israeli and American nationals,” the statement added.
CNN has reached out to the US State Department and the White House for comment. The United States is not a member of the court. While the US signed the treaty that established the court in 2000, it did not ratify it.
Over the past 18 months, the Trump administration has issued a series of sanctions that have penalized organizations and individuals who say they are seeking accountability for Israeli actions in Gaza — including under the jurisdiction of the Netherlands-based court. That campaign escalated on Monday when Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to use “all the tools at our government’s disposal” to “dismantle the ICC, brick by brick, if necessary.”
In September, the State Department imposed sanctions on three Palestinian human rights groups — al-Haq, the al-Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) — that had asked the ICC to investigate and arrest Israeli leaders following accusations of war crimes in Gaza.
The US also leveled sanctions last year against Albanese, an Italian human rights expert who has served as UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022, as well as ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and four other judges.
In his first term, Trump targeted the ICC for seeking to investigate alleged war crimes by US forces in Afghanistan.
Earlier this week, Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN, told CNN that the Trump administration’s efforts to scrutinize the ICC and other bodies seeking accountability underscore how such “efforts go far beyond trying to undermine the (ICC) and undermine the very constitutional rights of Americans to advocate for justice.”
Speaking about the lawsuit, Shakir drew parallels between the Trump administration’s foreign and domestic policies, warning that the impact of the ICC sanctions also “weakens the ability of Americans to petition their own government.”
“This executive order I think also underscores the Trump administration’s broader disdain and distrust for civil society, human rights organizations, journalists, those seeking truth,” Shakir said Tuesday.
“Our hope is that this lawsuit will embolden human rights groups in the United States to resume their critical work calling for justice and to engage with the human rights activists on the ground that risk their lives every single day,” he added.
The-CNN-Wire
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