Human Rights and Global Wrongs

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The United States has long endeavored to undermine the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Donald Trump has taken the assault to a new level with punishing sanctions against those who seek to hold accountable individuals who commit the most atrocious crimes.

On February 6, 2025, Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14203, Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court, which authorized sanctions against ICC judges and senior prosecutors who participated in investigations into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan and Palestine.

The U.S. has now levied sanctions against nine of the 18 ICC judges and three ICC prosecutors.

Trump’s administration has also sanctioned three well-respected Palestinian human rights organizations — Al-Haq: Law in the Service of Man, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and Palestinian Center for Human Rights — for supporting justice and accountability at the ICC.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine, was sanctioned as well. Albanese “directly engaged” with the ICC “in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote.

Ex-UN Special Rapporteur: Francesca Albanese Deserves Nobel Prize, Not Sanctions

Sanctions include frozen or closed bank accounts, rejection of financial transactions, denial of access to digital services, and travel bans.

Four prominent human rights organizations have filed a lawsuit alleging that Trump’s executive order violates the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and international law.

Trump declared in EO 14203 that the ICC “has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel” and “abused its power by issuing baseless arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.”

Netanyahu and Gallant stand charged by the ICC with war crimes of starvation as a form of warfare and intentional attacks on civilians, and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.

Trump claims in his order that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the U.S. or Israel because neither country is a State Party to the Rome Statute, ludicrously contending that the militaries of both countries “strictly adhere to the laws of war.”

The Rome Statute authorizes the ICC to exercise territorial jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-State Party nationals on the territory of a State Party. Although Israel has not ratified the Rome Statute, Palestine has, so the ICC determined that it has jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed by Israeli nationals in Palestine. The U.S. has supported several ICC investigations and prosecutions of crimes allegedly committed by non-State Party nationals, including the arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump also objects to the ICC’s investigation of alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan. Until 2021, the court was investigating U.S. as well as Afghan nationals for possible war crimes. But the prosecutor shifted the focus to crimes allegedly committed by the Taliban and its allies and........

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