Source: Africa Publicity
Three judges of the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) are reportedly suing President Donald Trump and his government over sanctions imposed on them in 2025.
Local US media reports say the lawsuit was filed in the federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday, June 24, 2026.
Reports say the three judges are Kimberly Prost of Canada, Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda and Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou of Benin.
The judges reportedly stated that the sanctions imposed on them by the US were designed to exert extrajudicial pressure with the objective of punishing and coercing the judges.
It would be recalled that in 2025, the President Trump administration imposed sanctions on several judges at the ICC in retaliation over the tribunal’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.
As a result of the sanctions, the judges saw their US-based property and assets blocked and US-based entities were also forbidden from engaging in transactions with them, including through the “provision of funds, goods or services”.
The ICC was established in 2002 and has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in member states or if a situation is referred by the UN Security Council.
In their lawsuit, the three judges argued that the sanctions were against the law as they exceeded the scope of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and were not based on a genuine national emergency or extraordinary threat.
According to the lawsuit, “The Sanctions Regime … is designed to exert extra-judicial pressure on these judges and their colleagues on the ICC bench by targeting their financial and other personal interests, with the objective of punishing them for prior judicial decisions and coercing them into prioritizing their private interests over deciding cases on the basis of the law and facts.”
It added that “Being subjected to such sanctions under IEEPA is tantamount to the financial death penalty. Due to the sanctions, Judges Prost, Bossa, and Alapini-Gansou are no longer able, among other things, to use credit cards; access banking services; use common online platforms, such as Amazon and Google; book travel; and in some cases, obtain health insurance.”
