Following the U.S. sanction on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials Phakiso Mochochoko and Fatou Besouda, a group of law professors sued to block President Donald Trump’s order sanctioning the ICC around its probe of viable war crimes committed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
These four professors filed a lawsuit on Thursday last week in Manhattan arguing that the sanctions regime threatens them with as many as twenty years in prison if they advise the ICC as they have done in the past.
Adding to their First Amendment argument, the professors say the ambiguity of the June order and related regulations issued by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Wednesday violates the Fifth Amendment. They also claim the measures are not authorized under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
