NYC Bar Files Amicus Brief Supporting Challenge to ICC Sanctions Executive Order

Brief Argues Order Undermines Judicial Independence and Administration of Justice

The New York City Bar Association (City Bar) has filed a motion for leave to submit an amicus curiae brief in American Friends Service Committee, Center for Constitutional Rights; Human Rights Watch; and Open Society Institute v. Trump, et al., pending before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in support of plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against Executive Order 14203, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court.”

The Order, issued in February 2025, authorizes sanctions — including asset blocking, prohibitions on transactions with U.S. persons, and entry bans — against foreign nationals who participate in International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations or prosecutions of “protected persons,” as well as those who provide material or financial support to such efforts. Plaintiffs, a coalition of human rights and civil liberties organizations, argue the Order has chilled their work with the Court.

In its brief, the City Bar — which has supported the ICC’s mission since before the Court’s founding and has repeatedly opposed sanctions targeting its personnel — makes three principal arguments:

• The Order attaches sanctions to adjudicative functions rather than independently wrongful conduct. Unlike conventional sanctions regimes aimed at conduct such as violence, corruption, or illicit financing, the Order penalizes the performance of judicial and prosecutorial duties itself — in tension with judicial immunity doctrine and international standards on judicial independence.
• The Order burdens the professional functions of lawyers and civil-society organizations. By exposing foreign counsel, investigators, and advocacy groups to designation while barring their U.S. counterparts from working with them, the Order disrupts the cross-border relationships through which evidence and legal assistance reach the Court.
• The ICC Statute and U.S. law have already addressed how the U.S. should respond to ICC proceedings involving U.S. nationals. The United States is not a party to the ICC. The American Servicemembers’ Protection Act of 2002 — which the Order itself invokes — expressly preserves legal representation, submission of exculpatory evidence, and appearances before the ICC under the Rome Statute’s own jurisdictional-challenge procedures (Articles 18 and 19) as legitimate means of protecting U.S. interests. The brief argues the Order disregards that framework.

The City Bar’s brief takes no position on the merits of any particular ICC investigation, arrest warrant, or proceeding. Its interest, the brief states, is institutional: ensuring that international judicial bodies can exercise their lawful functions, and that lawyers and civil-society actors can engage with them, without fear of economic retaliation.

The City Bar has a longstanding history of supporting the ICC’s establishment and mission and has previously warned, in 2020, 2024, 2025, and last month against sanctions targeting the Court and those who work with it.

Read the City Bar’s brief here.

About the Association
The mission of the New York City Bar Association, which was founded in 1870 and has over 20,000 members, is to equip and mobilize a diverse legal profession to practice with excellence, promote reform of the law, and uphold the rule of law and access to justice in support of a fair society and the public interest in our community, our nation, and throughout the world. www.nycbar.org