Trump signed Executive Order 14203 imposing sanctions on International Criminal Court officials and their U.S. supporters

On February 6, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14203, "Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court," authorizing asset-blocking sanctions and U.S. entry bans against ICC officials, employees, and their family members involved in efforts to investigate, arrest, or prosecute U.S. personnel or those of U.S. allies without the relevant government's consent. The order was issued during the week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington, and it followed the ICC's November 2024 arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the conduct of the war in Gaza.

The sanctions operate through executive determination alone: designated individuals have their U.S.-held property blocked and are barred from entry, with no adjudication of the conduct being punished. Because the order also exposes anyone who provides material or financial support to the court's sanctioned activities to penalties, its reach extends to U.S. citizens — including lawyers and human-rights advocates who cooperate with the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor. Human Rights Watch said the order put the United States "on the side of war criminals" and undermined international accountability for grave crimes.

Updates

2025-02-13 — Treasury designated ICC prosecutor Karim Khan [4]

On February 13, 2025, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control added ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to its Specially Designated Nationals list under Executive Order 14203, blocking his U.S.-held property.

2025-07-18 — Federal court enjoined enforcement against U.S. advocates [5]

The U.S. District Court for the District of Maine granted a preliminary injunction in Smith v. Trump, finding that human-rights advocates were likely to succeed on their claim that the order's speech restrictions — barring them from communicating with and assisting the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor — violate the First Amendment.

2026-06-24 — Sanctioned ICC judges sued over the order [7]

Three ICC judges — Kimberly Prost, Solomy Bossa, and Reine Alapini-Gansou — sued the Trump administration in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, arguing the sanctions exceeded presidential authority under IEEPA, violated their Fifth Amendment due process rights, and threatened judicial independence by punishing them for official judicial decisions.

2026-07-15 — Human-rights groups filed a new First Amendment challenge [6]

Democracy for the Arab World Now and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide sued the administration in New York federal court, arguing the sanctions unconstitutionally restrict their advocacy and association; the suit followed a designation of U.N. rapporteur Francesca Albanese that a court had briefly blocked before OFAC reinstated it.

2026-08-11 — Fourth lawsuit filed by HRW, AFSC, CCR, and OSI [8, 9]

On August 11, 2026, Human Rights Watch, the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Open Society Institute sued the Trump administration in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, challenging Executive Order 14203's sanctions on ICC officials and those who assist the court. The groups alleged the sanctions unlawfully restrict their human rights, legal, and advocacy work and violate IEEPA, the Administrative Procedure Act, the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — a distinct, separately filed suit from the two earlier ones already recorded here (ICC judges Prost, Bossa, and Alapini-Gansou, 2026-06-24; Democracy for the Arab World Now and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide, 2026-07-15), with different plaintiffs challenging the same underlying order.

2026-08-18 — Treasury sanctioned ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior prosecutor Abdoulaye Seye [10, 11]

On August 18, 2026, the administration designated two additional ICC officials under Executive Order 14203: ICC President Tomoko Akane of Japan and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye of Senegal, freezing any assets they hold in U.S. jurisdictions. The ICC called the move a "flagrant attack" on the court's independence the next day, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio branded the ICC "a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court." The administration has now sanctioned nine of the ICC's 18 judges, both deputy prosecutors, its former chief prosecutor, and one other prosecution-office staffer.