Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Washington was intensifying efforts to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court (ICC). This strategy includes expanding the use of punitive sanctions and actively pressuring the court’s member nations to withdraw their support. This aggressive stance represents a significant escalation in the US government’s long-standing opposition to the tribunal’s reach.
The White House action falls into a clear, documented pattern: ever since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in Palestine, individuals involved in documenting war crimes and prosecuting the accused have been systematically targeted by the United States. This policy aims to obstruct the pursuit of justice by creating a climate of fear and financial instability for those working within the framework of international law.
To date, the US administration has utilized Executive Order 1420 to impose sanctions on ICC prosecutors, eight ICC judges, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and three leading Palestinian human rights organizations. These measures are widely viewed as an effort to shield Israel from accountability for its actions in Gaza and the broader occupied territories.
Those targeted by these sanctions have faced severe personal and professional consequences. Many have had their bank accounts frozen or closed, seen financial transactions rejected, experienced the sudden termination of digital services, and faced significant travel restrictions. These actions are designed to cripple the operational capacity of those who hold the state of Israel to account.
This pressure campaign now faces its most direct legal challenge yet. On Tuesday, four major US human rights groups—Human Rights Watch, the Centre for Constitutional Rights, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Open Society Institute—sued the US administration. The plaintiffs argue that the sanctions are unconstitutional and exceed the scope of presidential authority under existing US law.
“Our lawsuit is seeking to put an end to the sanctions regime as a whole,” stated Elizabeth Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. The legal team is challenging the administration’s reliance on a manufactured “national emergency” that they argue does not survive scrutiny under US sanctions law. They contend that the government is misusing executive power to protect alleged war criminals from international oversight.
“We are asking the court to stop the US administration from enforcing the sanctions already in place and to prevent it from issuing any additional sanctions,” Evenson tells. The groups are also calling on the judiciary to protect the independence of the ICC, emphasizing that governments should not allow sanctions to become a tool for shielding those accused of grave violations.
“We aim to make sure that the ICC and all those working with it can do so without fear of reprisal,” she adds. The plaintiffs argue that the same legal reasoning that led courts to find previous sanctions against lawyers and rights defenders unconstitutional under the First Amendment should apply to the current regime targeting the ICC.
Washington has long argued that the ICC’s investigation of American citizens violates US sovereignty because it does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction over its nationals. However, this argument ignores the reality that US citizens accused of crimes committed abroad can already face prosecution in the countries where those crimes occurred, in line with established principles of international law.
In 2025, the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sanctioned by Washington just days after publishing a report detailing how dozens of corporations, including Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Palantir, were enabling and profiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and its genocide in Gaza. Albanese subsequently lost her US bank account and, briefly, her only apartment after Washington accused her of “biased and malicious activities” for performing her mandate.
Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, who opened the Gaza investigation and sought an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, was forced to step aside in May 2025 amid a misconduct allegation. Although Khan was cleared of any wrongdoing by an ICC judicial panel in March 2026, a bureau of member states voted to disregard that finding and removed him from his position regardless.
Khan later revealed that US senators threatened him directly regarding the investigation. “Twelve senators wrote, and they said, ‘If you target Israel, we will target you and your family. You have been warned.’ That’s almost a verbatim quotation,” Khan stated. This revelation highlights the extreme measures taken to influence the court’s proceedings.
In a separate development in May 2026, a federal judge in Washington blocked sanctions against Albanese outright, finding that her ICC recommendations were protected speech with “no binding effect” on the court. Rights groups hope this precedent will bolster their current lawsuit, as they urge the international community to stand together to protect the court’s independence and ensure that justice remains accessible to all victims of war crimes.
In September 2025, three of Palestine’s most prominent human rights groups; Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and Al-Mezan, were also sanctioned for supplying the ICC with the testimonies, forensic data, a
But Washington’s intimidation failed to silence anyone documenting or prosecuting Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, where the Palestinian death toll has passed 75,000 since October 2023.
The US “seeks to intimidate human rights defenders and deter people of conscience from advocating for the rights and dignity of others,” Ajlouny adds.
In September 2025, three of Palestine’s most prominent human rights groups; Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and Al-Mezan, were also sanctioned for supplying the ICC with the testimonies, forensic data, and casualty records their teams have compiled for decades, material that helped underpin the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.
In 2020, the US administration sanctioned senior ICC officials, including then Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, after the court announced it would investigate war crimes by US forces in Afghanistan and Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Bensouda had reportedly received direct threats from Israeli intelligence officials warning her against pursuing cases that could put her or her family at risk.
The US then froze her assets and barred her from entering the country.
“The fact that so many leading human rights and humanitarian organisations have come together to challenge Trump’s unlawful executive order demonstrates the widespread harm it is causing across civil society groups dedicated to bringing those responsible for grave crimes to justice,” says lead counsel Andrew Loewenstein of Foley Hoag LLP.
If they win, it would be the first ruling to challenge the sanctions structure as a whole, rather than carving out exceptions one name at a time.
In the meantime, there is a clear role here for all ICC member countries around the globe.”
