October 9, 2026, New York – In response to the Trump administration’s new sanctions on the International Criminal Court, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement: 

The Trump administration, which vowed to “dismantle” the ICC, is escalating its plan to do just that. Its previous sanctions – which we are challenging in court – target ICC judges, prosecutors, Palestinian human rights organizations, and others affiliated with the court. Today’s new sanctions target the ICC itself and are, as such, an existential threat to the global “court of last resort” for victims of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. 

On a day when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Navi Pillay for her efforts to “promote peace and international law” – from her time opposing apartheid in her native South Africa, to her groundbreaking work at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda recognizing rape as a tool of genocide, to her time as a judge at the ICC, and, most recently, as chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on violations in occupied Palestine – the juxtaposition with a Trump administration intent on solidifying impunity could not be more stark.

Trump’s sanctions are more than an assault on the ICC; Trump is waging an assault on international law itself – on the very principle that powerful states and their leaders should not be able to commit crimes with impunity. This is a logical project for a president who has, among other serious crimes, gone on a months-long murder spree in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, invaded Venezuela and plundered its oil, and waged a war of aggression on Iran that has killed hundreds of civilians, while attacking U.S. institutions, including federal courts and judges, in an effort to undermine democratic protections and fundamental rights. 

Although Trump and other opponents of international law have long opposed the ICC, they were willing to tolerate it as long as it was investigating and prosecuting only African leaders. Then the ICC investigated U.S. personnel for the Bush-era global torture program as part of its war crimes investigation in Afghanistan and launched an investigation in Palestine, which has led to arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders. The stronger and more universal the ICC becomes, the greater a threat it poses to a Trump administration that commits blatant violations of international law daily. Although the ICC’s jurisdiction is limited to situations when States are unwilling or unable to investigate these grave crimes committed on the territory of an ICC State party, the war criminals in the White House cannot abide any semblance of accountability for the U.S. government or its allies. 

The ICC, an imperfect but essential institution, holds the promise of a world where perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes are held accountable – and where, as a result, fewer such crimes are committed. It is this promise that Trump seeks to destroy. We must stop him and protect the ICC.