The U.S. government has long sought to incapacitate the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world’s first global court that was created to prosecute the most atrocious crimes. As the ICC seeks to provide accountability for Israeli crimes, the Trump administration has become increasingly aggressive in its attempts to hobble the court. On October 9, 2026, Team Trump imposed punitive sanctions against the court itself, which constitutes the gravest intensification of its war on the ICC. But there are several strategies available to mitigate the worst effects of these sanctions.

Executive Order 14203, Signed February 2025

In February 2025, Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14203, which authorizes the imposition of sanctions against the ICC. The sanctions amount to illegal unilateral coercive measures because only the UN Security Council has the authority to impose sanctions.

The executive order prohibits U.S. persons from providing material support or services to certain designated persons and entities, including financial services. It exposes non-U.S. persons to secondary sanctions for engaging in conduct prohibited under the order. U.S. persons who violate it may face criminal penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment and fines of up to $1 million.

Trump’s 2025 order has led to the sanctioning of nine of the ICC’s 18 judges, three ICC prosecutors, the ICC president, and a senior ICC trial attorney. The Trump administration also sanctioned three highly respected Palestinian human rights organizations — Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights — for their assistance to the ICC. Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine, who wrote three courageous reports documenting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, was sanctioned as well.

The October 9 Sanctions

In December 2025, a top Trump administration official told Reuters there was “growing concern” that “the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them,” adding that this was “unacceptable, and we will not allow it to happen.” He said the ICC had been warned that unless it amended the Rome Statute to ensure it would not investigate Trump and his top officials, new and very severe U.S. sanctions would be imposed on the court.

Sure enough, in an attempt to permanently paralyze the court, the Trump administration sanctioned the entire ICC on October 9,

U.S. sanctions have serious impacts on targeted individuals, whose bank accounts can be frozen or closed. Their financial transactions can be rejected, and they can be denied access to digital services and entry into the United States. Sanctions have a chilling effect on non-U.S. banks and other companies outside the jurisdiction of the United States; they themselves could lose access to the U.S. banking system. The ICC could lose access to companies on which it relies for its critical functions, including banking, information, technology, and travel.

Although the sanctions contain a six-month wind-down period and exemptions for certain services, they still pose significant risks. In the face of global reliance on the U.S. financial and IT systems, even non-U.S. service providers, including banks, might stop providing services to the ICC for fear of penalties or reprisals by the U.S. Treasury. This could affect the court’s ability to maintain a bank account, receive financial contributions from States Parties, pay staff, make payments, and maintain essential operations.

The imposition of these outrageous sanctions is the latest, and most devastating, chapter in the U.S.’s long campaign to undermine the ICC. Moreover, these sanctions were imposed on the same day that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Navi Pillay, a South African lawyer who served as a judge on the ICC for five years and led the UN Commission of Inquiry in 2025 that confirmed Israel’s commission of genocide in Gaza.

History of U.S. Attacks on the ICC

The International Criminal Court, which became operational in 2002, is a permanent international court created to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. Nearly two-thirds of the nations in the world have ratified the Rome Statute, thereby becoming States Parties and taking responsibility for arresting and sending those under warrants to the ICC for trial. The court was established to complement, not replace, national criminal justice systems. It will assume jurisdiction only when national systems are unwilling or unable to prosecute.

Bill Clinton signed the ICC’s Rome Statute in 2000 as his presidential term was ending, but George W. Bush removed the U.S. signature from it in 2002. The U.S. Congress then enacted the “The Hague Invasion Act,” which says that if a national of the U.S. or its ally (which includes Israel) is detained by the ICC in The Hague, the U.S. military can use armed force to extricate them. The Bush administration effectively blackmailed 100 States Parties to the Rome Statute by forcing them to sign bilateral immunity agreements in which they promised not to turn over U.S. persons to the ICC, or the U.S. would withhold their foreign aid.

In November 2024, after an investigation lasting more than three years, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They stand charged with the war crimes of starvation as a form of warfare, and intentional attacks on civilians; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts, for their actions in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

The U.S. contends that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israeli (or U.S.) nationals since neither Israel nor the U.S. are States Parties to the Rome Statute. However, the statute authorizes the ICC to exercise territorial jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-State Party nationals in the territory of a State Party. Palestine is a State Party to the statute, so the ICC determined that it has jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed by Israeli nationals in Palestine. Indeed, the U.S. has supported several ICC investigations and prosecutions of crimes allegedly committed by non-State Party nationals, including the arrest warrant that the court issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On July 13, 2026, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged to “dismantle” the International Criminal Court. He accused the ICC of “waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles,” but with “the force of so-called international law.” Venezuela and Chad announced their withdrawal from the Rome Statute following U.S. threats to reduce or withdraw assistance if they refused to do so.

Meanwhile, the court faces a leadership vacuum following the firing in July 2026 of the ICC’s former chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who had requested the issuance of the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. UN investigators said they “found evidence that Mr. Khan engaged in ‘non-consensual sexual contact’” with a lawyer who had worked as a special assistant to him in 2023. But after a three-month review of a 152-page report by the Office of Internal Oversight Services and of the 5,000+ pages of underpinning material, the Ad Hoc Panel of Judicial Experts unanimously determined that the facts did not establish evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of any wrongdoing on the part of Khan. Nevertheless, the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute voted to fire him with no due process on July 24.

In December 2026, the assembly will elect six judges to fill one-third of the ICC’s 18 judicial seats. The U.S. will invariably endeavor to interfere with those elections.

Lawsuits Challenging EO 14203

On July 15, Democracy for the Arab World Now and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that Trump’s EO 14203 violates the constitutional right to engage in Palestine-related human rights advocacy. They claimed that the sanctions violate the First Amendment by limiting what people in the U.S. can say to an international tribunal or to foreign advocates, and by limiting their ability to associate with sanctioned parties.

U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman granted Democracy for the Arab World Now and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide a temporary restraining order on October 13, which temporarily blocks the Trump administration from imposing civil or criminal penalties on the two organizations for supporting ICC’s investigations into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The judge said the two organizations were likely to prevail on their claims that Trump’s sanctions violated the First Amendment.

Democracy for the Arab World Now announced it would immediately resume its advocacy with the ICC for the prosecution of Israeli and U.S. perpetrators of grave crimes, and it will work with the three sanctioned human rights groups and the Special Rapporteur.

On August 11, the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and the Open Society Institute filed a lawsuit in a New York federal court, alleging that Trump’s executive order violates the U.S. Constitution; U.S. statutes; and international law, including the Genocide Convention, Geneva Conventions, and customary international law.

Actions to Protect the ICC

On October 12, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, comprised of more than 120 organizations from over 60 countries representing all regions of the world, and dozens of legal experts, human rights defenders, and members of the EU, issued a joint statement, urging States Parties to act now to protect the ICC from unlawful U.S. sanctions.

The statement condemned “unequivocally and in the strongest terms the [U.S.] decision by the United States to impose unlawful sanctions on the International Criminal Court.” The CICC said, “This unprecedented measure represents a direct attack against the rule of law, the independence of the Court and international justice, ultimately undermining the rights of millions of victims and survivors of mass atrocities worldwide.”

The CICC listed 12 actions that States Parties should take, individually and collectively, to protect the court. They include the immediate adoption or activation of blocking measures at the national and regional levels; for example, the immediate adoption of the EU Blocking Statute and equivalent domestic legislation elsewhere. Blocking measures would shield those sanctioned, including the court and its officials, the UN Special Rapporteur, and civil society organizations, from the extraterritorial reach of the sanctions.

In addition, the CICC urges States Parties to guarantee that the court and those cooperating with it have access to banking and other essential services; to find concrete measures to mitigate the impact of sanctions on civic space, freedom of speech, and freedom of association; and to explore all possible diplomatic and legal avenues to challenge the sanctions and their legality under international law, including by supporting U.S. legal challenges and a referral to the International Court of Justice.

And the CICC implores States Parties to refuse, “without exception,” coercion by a non-State Party to influence votes, positions, or conduct within the Assembly of States Parties or any other body of the Rome Statute system.

The battle to save the ICC and its capacity to enforce accountability for the most heinous crimes is one struggle with many fronts: local, regional, national, and international.

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