Smith v. Trump – Human Rights Investigations and Free Speech

On April 11, 2025, the ACLU and ACLU of Maine filed a lawsuit on behalf of two human rights advocates who were forced to stop their humanitarian work with the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to unlawful sanctions imposed by a Trump executive order.

On February 6, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14203, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court.” The order made it illegal for Americans to provide a service to the head of the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor. The government claimed the authority to harshly punish anyone who provides such a service – even if the service consisted of communicating information.

Our clients have dedicated their lives to seeking justice for the victims of atrocities, and communicating with the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor is a vital part of their work. For example, our clients have provided the Office of the Prosecutor with legal analysis, evidence, and policy expertise related to genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. But the executive order forced them to halt that human rights advocacy – in violation of the First Amendment. Under the executive order, people in the U.S. who do this work could face stiff penalties simply for exercising their constitutional right to engage and advocate with ICC investigators and prosecutors.

The ACLU of Maine and ACLU promptly filed suit and won a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the executive order, allowing our clients to continue their humanitarian work as the case moves forward.

The First Amendment does not allow the government to impose sweeping limits on what Americans can say and who they can say it to.

Our clients have long assisted the ICC in seeking accountability for atrocities. Matthew Smith is the co-founder of Fortify Rights, a nonprofit human rights organization. He has provided the Office of the Prosecutor with evidence of the genocide and forced deportation of Myanmar’s Rohingya people, and has assisted the office in analyzing and developing new sources of evidence regarding related atrocity crimes in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Our other client, Akila Radhakrishnan, is an international human rights lawyer. She has advised the Office of the Prosecutor on investigating sexual and gender-based violence committed against Afghan women under the Taliban, helped the office develop policies on sexual and gender violence, and advocated with the office to investigate genocides by ISIS against the Yazidi people in Iraq and Syria, and by Myanmar’s junta against the Rohingya people in that country.

Our clients had to stop their important work with the ICC’s investigators and prosecutors or risk punishment under the Trump executive order. As the lawsuit explains, the order unconstitutionally restricts Americans’ First Amendment rights. It also exceeds the authority Congress gave the President to impose sanctions. Our clients are asking the court to declare that the order’s speech restrictions are unlawful and prohibit the government from enforcing them.

The international community, including the United States, established the ICC in 1998 to help maintain international peace and security. The ICC investigates and prosecutes atrocity crimes when domestic courts are unwilling or unable to do so. Today, 125 countries have joined the ICC’s founding treaty, known as the “Rome Statute.” While the United States has not ratified the Rome Statute, it has supported the ICC’s critical work on a wide range of matters.

In 2020, when President Trump imposed similar sanctions, the ACLU sued on behalf of other human rights experts who were forced to stop working with the ICC. The advocates withdrew their lawsuit when President Joe Biden rescinded the sanctions, but a federal court in a separate suit agreed the sanctions likely violated the First Amendment.