Why We’re Suing to Defend the International Criminal Court

On October 9, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) itself—the court of last resort for victims of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This was the latest step in a rolling series of sanctions against individual judges, prosecutors, and human rights actors who have worked for and with the ICC. The Open Society Foundations are fighting the sanctions regime in federal court.

The Open Society Justice Initiative regularly pursues legal cases on behalf of others, but it is unusual for Open Society to sue in its own name. We are doing so because the sanctions regime impacts us: It has already forced us to suspend work with sanctioned partners, in The Hague and beyond. We also take this step to defend a system of international justice that millions of people around the world count on. The ICC is where victims of the gravest crimes—from Gaza to Ukraine to the Philippines—can turn when their own governments will not act, and where even heads of state can be made to answer. The Trump administration’s sanctions are designed to close that door, and to punish anyone who helps keep it open.

The October 9 sanctions were imposed under Executive Order 14203, which President Trump signed on February 6, 2025. Under the order, sanctions may be imposed on any non-U.S. person—and enforced with civil and criminal penalties against any U.S. person—who the Secretary of State finds has engaged in, materially assisted, or provided support for ICC investigations the administration opposes. The word “support” has very broad reach: It can include education, advice, training, analysis, and legal representation.

The sanctions are part of an escalating campaign which, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in July, is intended to “dismantle the ICC—brick by brick, if necessary.”

Already concerned about the sanctions in place since 2025, the Open Society Institute, together with the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Human Rights Watch, filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York on August 11, 2026. The case argues that the sanctions regime exceeds presidential authority, violates constitutional protections of free expression and association, and is unconstitutionally vague.

U.S. courts have heard some of these arguments before. In January 2021, in a case brought by the Justice Initiative and four law professors, a federal judge preliminarily blocked enforcement of a similar order from Trump’s first term against them. In July 2025, in a case filed by the Justice Initiative and the law firm Foley Hoag, another U.S. judge permanently barred enforcement of the current order against two law professors who work with the court.

Then came October 9. The Trump administration turned the order on the institution itself, imposing what some term a “financial death penalty”: its U.S. assets frozen, and the threat of losing access to bank accounts, insurance, and anything else connected with the U.S. banking system. The administration says it is defending American sovereignty. But the ICC, which acts only when national governments fail to do so, and which has no police force of its own, poses no threat to American citizens. It is telling that the same day that Washington imposed court-wide sanctions, it lifted sanctions on Russian diesel. The court that issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin has its assets frozen; Putin gets his buyers back. These sanctions are about keeping the powerful beyond the reach of the law.

What the administration is trying to dismantle took half a century to build. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s governments have joined the court, and its cases span four continents. It occupies a central place in the system of international justice that, since the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War, has sought to hold to account the perpetrators of grave crimes. That system has been imperfect. It has focused on some conflicts and some places and not others. It has often spared the most powerful states and leaders. And yet, flawed though it is, it represents a huge break from centuries of impunity, when the idea that war criminals might be prosecuted was utopian at best.

The proof came in the 1990s, when the United Nations tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda indicted and, in time, tried the architects of genocide—among them Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb political and military leaders behind the Srebrenica massacre. The success of these trials made a permanent court possible in 1998, when 120 governments voted in Rome to create the ICC. Since then, the court has convicted perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity, ordered reparations for victims in several countries, and helped advance the law.

The ICC’s recent arrest warrants include those against Taliban leaders for gender persecution of Afghan women and girls; senior officials of Israel and Hamas for crimes in Palestine and Israel; and former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, who is charged with crimes against humanity for allegedly overseeing the mass murder of civilians in his “war on drugs.” The court will begin its trial of Duterte on November 30.

When Justice Initiative Executive Director James Goldston visited Manila this summer, people close to the victims made clear what is at stake. A church worker called the charges “the fulfillment of a dream—that accountability is possible.” The sibling of a man killed in the drug war sees the case as “a lesson for everyone that even a president can be punished for his crimes.” Accountability makes history harder to rewrite, and it may also make the next leader think twice.

For us, defending the court is also a matter of our own history. The court is an achievement not just of states but also of civil society. Open Society joined many rights defenders and victim groups who lobbied for and helped give birth to the ICC. For decades, international justice has been a priority for this foundation: through our own advocacy and litigation, through our support for courageous activists and survivors, and through the assistance we have provided to the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the ICC itself. Before the Trump sanctions were imposed, we worked closely with ICC officials and numerous local groups to help the court improve its ability to investigate and prosecute the most serious crimes. Now, the sanctions have halted this critical work.

The rule of law rests at the core of what it means to be an open society. It is not coincidental that we are using legal action at a time when courts and judges are under threat. Under the new sanctions, many of the organizations and people who depend on the ICC cannot afford the risk of standing up for it. We can. Justice is a long game, and we will defend the court for as long as it takes.