The Trump administration imposed sanctions final yr towards Kimberly Prost, a Canadian decide on the Worldwide Felony Courtroom. Now, she and two different judges are suing President Trump and his administration, claiming the penalties exceeded his authority.
The case, filed within the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, is the newest effort to problem what many consultants have described because the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine worldwide regulation.
If profitable, the lawsuit might curb the American authorities’s capacity to make use of sanctions to punish judges for making rulings it disagrees with.
Ms. Prost is joined within the go well with by Decide Reine Alapini-Gansou from Benin and Decide Solomy Balungi Bossa from Uganda. A replica of the newly filed grievance was supplied to The New York Instances by one of many decide’s legal professionals.
The White Home and State Division didn’t instantly remark.
In February 2025 the State Division imposed sanctions over the I.C.C.’s investigations into actions by Israelis and Individuals. Neither Israel nor the USA are members of the court docket, which is predicated in The Hague and was formally established in 2002 to prosecute probably the most severe worldwide crimes, like genocide.
Over the next months, the record of sanctioned judges on the court docket grew. In June, Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced sanctions on four judgestogether with Ms. Alapini-Gansou and Ms. Bossa, for issuing arrest warrants towards Israeli leaders.
In August, officers added two judges to the record, together with Ms. Prost. She was focused for her function in authorizing an investigation into U.S. army personnel at secret C.I.A. websites within the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults. The administration then imposed sanctions towards two more judges in December.
America has additionally positioned different I.C.C. officers underneath sanctions, together with the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.
Officers underneath sanction have confronted asset freezes, journey bans and restrictions on providers from U.S. corporations.
The brand new lawsuit argues that the sanctions exceeded Mr. Trump’s authority underneath the Worldwide Emergency Financial Powers Act as a result of they weren’t based mostly on a nationwide emergency and so they battle with worldwide and federal regulation.
The go well with additionally argues that the State and Treasury Departments violated the Administrative Process Act, which prohibits choices which are “arbitrary and capricious.” These sanctions fall into that class, in response to the lawsuit, which argues that the State Division has not even proven that the judges fall inside the class of individuals towards whom sanctions have been licensed.
Ms. Prost and Ms. Bossa additionally declare that blocking their U.S.-based financial institution accounts violated the Fifth Modification, which requires due course of underneath American regulation..
“Concentrating on worldwide judges for finishing up their judicial duties is an unprecedented assault on judicial independence and the rule of regulation,” stated James A. Goldston, govt director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, a rights-focused authorized group that’s representing Ms. Prost within the case.
Their executive-power arguments bear some similarities to these different plaintiffs have used efficiently to problem Trump administration insurance policies, together with the sweeping international tariffs that the Supreme Courtroom struck down in February.
Authorized consultants stated, nonetheless, that courts is likely to be much less prepared to use that sort of reasoning to sanctions.
“Courts have at all times stated that it isn’t the area of federal judges to second-guess factual, policy-infused judgments of emergencies or overseas coverage issues which are made by the manager department,” stated Aziz Huq, a regulation professor on the College of Chicago. That makes this case completely different from one difficult an financial coverage like tariffs or a home regulation, he stated.
The executive-law declare could also be extra prone to succeed, consultants say.
“The low hanging fruit for them is to problem the method slightly than the president’s capacity to have completed it in any respect,” stated Nabeel Yousef, who leads the worldwide sanctions, export and commerce follow at Freshfields, a global regulation agency. “I feel there is likely to be one thing there.”
Plaintiffs ordinarily should exhaust administrative cures for these claims earlier than submitting a federal go well with, nonetheless, and it isn’t clear whether or not the judges have completed so.
(Mr. Huq and Mr. Yousef spoke about this space of regulation usually. They haven’t reviewed the brand new lawsuit.)
This problem, if it really works, might construct on one other case, one involving Francesca Albanese, a United Nations official appointed to report on human rights within the West Financial institution and Gaza.
This yr, a U.S. federal decide temporarily blocked the administration’s sanctions towards Ms. Albanese for her contributions to the I.C.C. case towards Israel, although an appeals court docket later halted the injunction whereas the case is pending.
Legally, the instances are completely different. Ms. Albanese, who solely submitted info to the court docket, challenged the sanctions towards her on First Modification grounds.
The lawsuit filed on Wednesday is meant, partially, to push again on what the judges consider is the punitive method during which the Trump administration is utilizing sanctions.
Ms. Prost was at residence, standing in her kitchen, when the decision got here informing she was being sanctioned. It wasn’t a whole shock, on condition that lots of her colleagues had already been sanctioned, she stated throughout an interview at The Hague this yr.
Inside hours, she stated, she had obtained a message from Amazon canceling her accounts. Earlier than lengthy, Google and her banks received in contact. Over the next days, bank cards ceased to work.
“Lodge bookings are only a nightmare, as a result of everybody needs that bank card,” she defined. At one level, she stated, she needed to borrow another person’s bank card to pay a 15 euro invoice for a freeway toll move.
Ms. Prost has a historical past of engaged on the opposite aspect of sanctions: Between 2010 and 2015, she labored with the U.N. physique chargeable for setting up worldwide sanctions towards the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. She reviewed these measures.
“I’m nonetheless a believer in sanctions, consider it or not, as a result of correctly utilized, I feel they’re a particularly essential device,” Ms. Prost stated.
