Washington (EFE).- Four United States human rights organizations filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in New York against the President Donald Trump administration over its campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC) and associated entities and individuals.
According to a statement released by Human Rights Watch, the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Open Society Institute, and Human Rights Watch filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The complaint alleges that Trump’s administration “is illegally sanctioning individuals and organizations affiliated with or assisting the work of the ICC and is criminalizing those who associate with or otherwise support them.”
The four groups claim that the sanctions, triggered by an executive order signed by Trump in Feb. 2025, constitute «a blatantly illegal attack» on international justice and «force them to curtail a wide range of human rights and legal work,» thereby violating the rights guaranteed to them by the First and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution.
The lawsuit argued that the sanctions “exceed the president’s powers and are based on a pseudo ‘national emergency’ that has no basis in fact.»
The US does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction to try its citizens because it has never signed the Rome Statute. The Trump administration uses the same argument to Israel, which has also not signed the Statute.
The 2025 executive order considers the ICC’s investigations into the US military, as well as the arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, to be an unusual and extraordinary threat to US national security and foreign policy.
The text formally declared a “national emergency” due to the court’s actions.
To date, the Trump administration has invoked the order to sanction ICC prosecutors and judges, as well as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese and three Palestinian human rights organizations.
In July, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new campaign to dismantle the court, including sanctions and pressure on countries that recognize the court. EFE
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