By Sana Noor Haq, NCS
(NCS) — Two US nonprofits have sued the Trump administration over sanctions focusing on the International Criminal Court (ICC) — penalties that they are saying “violate Americans’ constitutional right to engage in Palestine-related” human rights advocacy.
Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a corporation that promotes democracy and human rights within the Middle East and North Africa, and the Taxpayers Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG) filed a lawsuit Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court docket searching for to bar the Trump administration from utilizing an government order “to prevent US citizens from supporting investigations into US and Israeli abuses,” in accordance with a press release launched by the 2 organizations. Those measures “muzzle Palestine advocacy,” the assertion added.
An government order issued by US President Donald Trump in February 2025 authorizes punitive measures towards ICC staffers, akin to sanctions and bans on coming into the United States, due to what the administration described as “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
Several different challenges to the ICC sanctions have been filed so far, however this lawsuit is the primary that goals to cease Trump-appointed officers from utilizing sanctions legislation to “bar Americans from supporting the ICC’s investigations into US and Israeli atrocity crimes, or from working with (UN special human rights envoy Francesca Albanese) and the sanctioned Palestinian NGOs,” the organizations’ assertion stated.
Those sanctions “unconstitutionally restrict Americans from seeking justice on Palestine at the ICC and working with human rights defenders designated solely for calling on the ICC to investigate Israeli and American nationals,” the assertion added.
NCS has reached out to the US State Department and the White House for remark. The United States isn’t a member of the court docket. While the US signed the treaty that established the court docket in 2000, it didn’t ratify it.
Over the previous 18 months, the Trump administration has issued a sequence of sanctions that have penalized organizations and people who say they’re searching for accountability for Israeli actions in Gaza — together with beneath the jurisdiction of the Netherlands-based court docket. That marketing campaign escalated on Monday when Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed to use “all the tools at our government’s disposal” to “dismantle the ICC, brick by brick, if necessary.”
In September, the State Department imposed sanctions on three Palestinian human rights teams — al-Haq, the al-Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) — that had requested the ICC to research and arrest Israeli leaders following accusations of warfare crimes in Gaza.
The US additionally leveled sanctions final yr towards Albanese, an Italian human rights knowledgeable who has served as UN particular rapporteur on the scenario of human rights within the Palestinian territories since 2022, in addition to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and 4 different judges.
In his first time period, Trump targeted the ICC for searching for to research alleged warfare crimes by US forces in Afghanistan.
Earlier this week, Omar Shakir, government director of DAWN, instructed NCS that the Trump administration’s efforts to scrutinize the ICC and different our bodies searching for accountability underscore how such “efforts go far beyond trying to undermine the (ICC) and undermine the very constitutional rights of Americans to advocate for justice.”
Speaking in regards to the lawsuit, Shakir drew parallels between the Trump administration’s international and home insurance policies, warning that the influence of the ICC sanctions additionally “weakens the ability of Americans to petition their own government.”
“This executive order I think also underscores the Trump administration’s broader disdain and distrust for civil society, human rights organizations, journalists, those seeking truth,” Shakir stated Tuesday.
“Our hope is that this lawsuit will embolden human rights groups in the United States to resume their critical work calling for justice and to engage with the human rights activists on the ground that risk their lives every single day,” he added.
The-NCS-Wire
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