Trump sued over ICC sanctions for violating Americans' free speech rights

The Trump administration is facing a lawsuit over its sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Two American nonprofits—Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG)—sued White House officials in federal court on Wednesday. The lawsuit challenges President Trump's February 2025 executive order, which imposed sanctions on ICC judges, prosecutors, and Palestinian human rights groups seeking to investigate alleged U.S. and Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Constitutional Challenge

The lawsuit alleges that the sanctions violate the First Amendment right to free speech and "unconstitutionally restrict Americans from seeking justice on Palestine at the ICC." This includes:

• Limiting what Americans can say to an international tribunal or to foreign advocates
• Restricting their ability to associate with sanctioned parties

As a result of Trump's order, DAWN and TAAG stated they have avoided filing submissions to the ICC and refrained from working with those affected by the sanctions—such as Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestine—out of fear of facing criminal charges.

"The Trump administration is using the blunt instrument of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights defenders, but to police the political expression of millions of Americans," said Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN, in a statement.

Background and Context

Trump's 2025 executive order follows a similar attempt to target the ICC during his first term. That earlier effort was blocked by a judge in 2020 and formally rescinded under President Biden in 2021.

This lawsuit comes two days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration would seek to dismantle the court, potentially through:

• Travel bans
• Visa revocations
• Increased sanctions against the ICC and its affiliates
• Diplomatic pressure on countries to withdraw from the ICC

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Rubio described the ICC as "a standing world tribunal with near-unlimited reach, empowered to override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states—and to prosecute and arrest our citizens … backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S."

Related Legal Actions

Late last month, three ICC judges sued the Trump administration over sanctions imposed against them, which left them unable to access any assets in the U.S. or engage in any transactions with American entities, including through the "provision of funds, goods or services."

Wednesday's lawsuit seeks to protect Americans who are trying to seek justice for Palestine from facing the same consequences.

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Trump Fires U.S. Attorney Minutes After Appointment by Federal Judges

The White House has found a novel way to ensure Donald Trump's nominees ascend to power.

Federal judges in the Western District of Washington swore in former King County Superior Court Judge Roger Rogoff as U.S. attorney Wednesday morning. Within 54 minutes, Trump fired him.

The district's 17 federal judges had been trying to find a replacement for Seattle's First Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd, after Trump failed to formally nominate him. Floyd was appointed in October, though his name was never officially advanced to the Senate for consideration.

Federal law grants a district's judges the power to appoint a U.S. attorney if the president and the acting attorney general fail to do so within 120 days, subsequently stonewalling the procedural Senate hearings.

Instead, Floyd became an interim U.S. attorney and, later, the first assistant, in an attempt to "sidestep the nomination process," according to The Seattle Times.