A U.S. federal judge has dealt a legal blow to the Trump administration’s crackdown on groups cooperating with the International Criminal Court (ICC), issuing a preliminary injunction this week that shields two American human rights organizations from potential civil or criminal liability for their work supporting ICC investigations.
Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York ruled that the two groups, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG), had demonstrated a strong likelihood of proving that the Trump administration’s executive order violated their First Amendment rights to free speech. In his ruling, Furman emphasized that any interruption to First Amendment freedoms, even for a short period, constitutes irreversible harm to constitutional protections. The judge’s order specifically blocks any punitive measures targeting the two groups that are rooted in their protected speech activities.
The legal challenge was launched in July, shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio published an op-ed declaring the administration’s intent to “dismantle the ICC brick by brick.” A separate, ongoing lawsuit was filed a month later by four additional U.S. human rights groups, which argue that Trump’s sanctions on the ICC are rooted in a manufactured national emergency with no factual basis.
DAWN, which was founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi, a former Middle East Eye columnist murdered in 2018, confirmed this week that it will continue its work after the court’s ruling. The organization has submitted multiple filings to the ICC that document alleged atrocity crimes committed by Israeli officials in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as well as the complicity of U.S. officials in these alleged crimes. DAWN’s legal team explained that the group’s work is not limited to supporting ICC investigations, but also aims to build broad public pressure to hold state actors accountable to international law.
The court ruling does not, however, reverse the Trump administration’s broader sanctions regime targeting the ICC itself. That regime was established 18 months into Trump’s presidency via Executive Order 14203, which authorized the imposition of sanctions on any foreign individual that supports ICC investigations into U.S. or Israeli nationals suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The order also criminalized providing or receiving any “service” connected to sanctioned individuals or entities connected to the ICC. The administration justified these measures by claiming the ICC’s investigations represent a national emergency, arguing the court has no jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. or Israeli citizens during armed conflict.
The U.S. has a long history of ambivalence toward the ICC: while it participated in the court’s founding negotiations and signed the Rome Statute in 2000 under President Bill Clinton, it never sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification, over longstanding fears that U.S. military personnel and officials could face prosecution for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump has been openly explicit that his administration’s actions are specifically intended to punish the ICC for its investigations targeting Israel. To date, the administration has used Executive Order 14203 to sanction ICC prosecutors and judges, three leading Palestinian human rights groups (al-Haq, al-Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights), and United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who investigates human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.
When DAWN and TAAG first filed their lawsuit, their legal team argued that the executive order’s vague definition of “service” gave the government broad power to penalize almost any activity that benefits sanctioned parties. The groups warned they could face prosecution for routine activities such as filing legal briefs with the ICC, sharing evidence, or even collaborating with Palestinian human rights groups or Albanese. Prior to the court ruling, the threat of legal action had already forced many organizations to self-censor, halt work related to the ICC and cut professional ties with sanctioned individuals and groups. Joe Pace, the attorney representing DAWN and TAAG, described the Trump administration’s actions as a “textbook infringement on the First Amendment,” noting that the Constitution does not allow the government to dictate what topics American citizens can discuss with domestic or foreign parties.