In a historic legal challenge that tests the boundaries of executive power and the rule of law, three sitting International Criminal Court (ICC) judges have secured a court summons for former US President Donald Trump, forcing his administration to defend sweeping sanctions imposed over the tribunal’s investigations into alleged actions by US and Israeli nationals. The summons, issued Thursday by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, gives the administration 60 days to respond to the complaint filed one day prior by the three jurists: Kimberly Prost from Canada, Solomy Balungi Bossa from Uganda, and Reine Alapini-Gansou from Benin. Alongside Trump, the suit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (which manages the sanctions list), and OFAC director Bradley Smith as co-defendants. This marks the first time that sitting ICC judges have personally taken legal action to contest their designation under Executive Order 14203, the directive Trump signed into law on February 6, 2025. The order invoked a purported national emergency triggered by the ICC’s probes into US and Israeli citizens to authorize asset freezes and travel bans against foreign officials participating in or supporting those investigations. The three judges are not alone in facing penalties: they are among eight ICC-affiliated individuals sanctioned under the order, which has also targeted ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, his two deputies, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, and three Palestinian human rights organizations. Each of the three plaintiffs sits on judicial panels overseeing high-stakes investigations: Prost and Bossa work on the Afghanistan probe, while Alapini-Gansou handles the file on alleged crimes in Palestinian territories. James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative and co-counsel for Prost, has denounced the sanctions as “an unprecedented attack on judicial independence and the rule of law.” The measures, Goldston confirmed, have inflicted severe tangible harm on judges who have done nothing more than fulfill their official, oath-bound duties. The complaint itself describes the sanctions as “tantamount to the financial death penalty.” According to Goldston, speaking to independent outlet Middle East Eye, Prost’s personal US bank accounts have been frozen, she has lost access to conventional credit card services, and her accounts with major US-based tech and consumer firms including Amazon, Google and Expedia have been restricted or terminated entirely. Worse, Prost has effectively lost access to health coverage after her existing provider refused to process her medical claims, and no other insurer will agree to underwrite a policy for her. Before joining the ICC in 2018, Prost built a career focused on international sanctions regimes: she served as a federal prosecutor for Canada’s Department of Justice, and later as ombudsperson for the UN Security Council’s al-Qaeda sanctions committee, overseeing the exact type of punitive measures that are now being used against her. “She knows a great deal about sanctions, and in some ways it is rather extraordinary that she is now being subjected to these severe sanctions, really solely for undertaking her job as a judge seriously and professionally,” Goldston noted. The legal team has laid out three core constitutional and statutory arguments for why the executive order must be struck down entirely by the court. First, the plaintiffs argue the order far exceeds the authority Congress delegated to the president under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the legislation Trump relied on to impose the sanctions. They further contend that the penalties contradict a separate federal law, the 2002 American Service-Members’ Protection Act (ASPA), which was drafted specifically to address the risk of the ICC opening investigations into US or allied nationals who are not parties to the Rome Statute. Goldston explained that ASPA only permits the president to respond to such investigations through narrow, specific measures: providing legal representation for US citizens, submitting exculpatory evidence to the court, and defending US interests through official diplomatic and legal channels. The law does not grant any authority to impose punitive sanctions on ICC personnel. Even in the extreme scenario that an American citizen is taken into ICC custody, Goldston added, ASPA explicitly bars the executive branch from using financial or personal “inducements” to pressure the court into changing its rulings. The sanctions imposed under Executive Order 14203, he argued, fit exactly that prohibited definition. “They are trying to induce judges to refrain from deciding on the basis of facts and law, and instead take into account their own personal interests, that is, the threats to their own financial and personal well-being imposed by these sanctions,” he said. The plaintiffs also reject the administration’s claim of a national emergency justifying the order. IEEPA can only be invoked to respond to an “unusual and extraordinary” threat to US national security, but Washington’s opposition to the ICC’s exercise of jurisdiction over non-party nationals dates back nearly 30 years. President Bill Clinton first raised the same objection when he signed the Rome Statute in 2000, and earlier this year a senior US official confirmed to the United Nations that none of the concerns cited in the 2025 executive order are new, with Washington having reiterated the same position for almost three decades. Legal observers note that both Afghanistan and Palestine are ICC member states, and the Rome Statute has long enshrined the principle that the court can exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed on a member state’s territory, regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator. The second core argument centers on constitutional protections for property: the asset freeze imposed on Prost and Bossa, who both hold US-based assets, violates the Fifth Amendment in two distinct ways—by depriving them of private property without due process of law, and by seizing private property without just compensation. The third argument holds that the designation of the judges violates the Administrative Procedure Act, because the penalties are “arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion.” The complaint notes that the Trump administration has failed to produce any specific, concrete evidence justifying the sanctions against the individual judges, and also neglected to weigh the severe damage the measures inflict on international accountability efforts—including ICC investigations that the US itself openly supports, such as the probes into alleged war crimes in Sudan, Libya, and Ukraine. Goldston emphasized that all three arguments revolve around the same core violation: the sanctions pressure judges to prioritize their own personal and financial security over their oath to impartially adjudicate cases based on law and facts. “The sanctions seek to compel these judges to refrain from their sworn oath, to decide cases on the basis of an impartial assessment of the facts and the law,” he said. “That is a fundamental threat to the rule of law.” This lawsuit is the fifth legal challenge to Executive Order 14203 to date. In four earlier cases challenging the order, US courts have already ruled that the directive is unconstitutional, finding it imposes unlawful restrictions on the free speech rights of individuals and organizations that cooperate with the ICC. One of those earlier successful challenges was brought on behalf of Francesca Albanese, the sanctioned UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories. This current suit, however, is the first to directly challenge the designation of sitting ICC judges. The Open Society Justice Initiative leads representation for Prost, with international law firm Foley Hoag serving as co-counsel. When asked about the prospects of the suit succeeding, Goldston said his team is confident in the strength of their arguments, but noted that the judicial process will ultimately determine the outcome. “We are hopeful that these arguments will be persuasive, but that is what the judicial process is for. We will see what the outcome is,” he said.