A federal judge on Friday handed down a ruling partially blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court.
In February, Trump issued an order targeting the ICC due to accusations of anti-U.S. bias and antisemitic behavior, specifically regarding the body’s move to issue arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. The order, although focused on sanctioning ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who is under investigation for alleged rape, also applied to the ICC’s 900 staff members and related personnel.
In her decision over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen ruled in favor of two human rights activists who had appealed the executive order in April. Although the Maine judge concluded that Trump’s directive violated First Amendment rights to free speech, she only blocked penalties from applying to the two U.S. plaintiffs in question, making her ruling limited in scope.
“The executive order appears to restrict substantially more speech than necessary,” she wrote.”The executive order broadly prohibits any speech-based services that benefit the prosecutor, regardless of whether those beneficial services relate to an ICC investigation of the United States, Israel, or another U.S. ally.”
Khan is the only person specifically listed as sanctioned in Trump’s February order, which banned him from entering the U.S. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also placed him on Washington’s list of “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons,” barring him from doing business with Americans and freezing his U.S.-based assets.
However, the order also suggested that U.S. citizens who provide services for the benefit of Khan or other sanctioned individuals could face civil and criminal penalties. It threatened any person, institution, or company with potential fines and prison time if they provided Khan with “financial, material, or technological support.”
Trump said he was targeting Khan’s court because it had “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel” after saying the Israeli leaders should answer charges that included “murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
Known as the ICC’s lead prosecutor, Khan stepped aside in May after being accused of repeatedly raping a staffer. Khan allegedly forced himself on a Malaysian lawyer during trips to New York, Colombia, Congo, Chad, and Paris, in addition to a residence owned by his wife in The Hague. Khan tried to blackmail his former aide into silence, according to court documents, by telling her that publicizing accusations would harm the ICC’s war crimes investigation into Israel. He is facing an investigation by the United Nations for allegedly retaliating against multiple other staffers who reported the allegations or were critical of how he has handled them.
Republicans have long accused the ICC of anti-Israel and U.S. bias, with Trump moving during his first term to sanction nearly 14,000 ICC employees through an executive order similar to the one he issued in January. Joe Biden revoked the 2020 sanctions when he assumed the presidency after Trump.
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The GOP has continued to call for sanctions against the ICC during Trump’s second term, particularly after the body pursued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leading the Right to point to the action as another example of antisemitism.
The House in January passed Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX) Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which sought to impose sanctions on ICC officials accused of acting against U.S. citizens or allies, including Israel. The bill’s final passage was later blocked in the upper chamber by Senate Democrats.
