On Friday, two American lawyers brought legal action to complete the decision of President Donald Trump to impose sanctions on Karim Khan, the Attorney General of the International Criminal Court.
Lawyers put legal action before a Federal Court of Bangur, in Maine, which challenged Trump’s decree last February, imposing sanctions on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and preventing American citizens from providing him with services.
The two lawyers considered that the unconstitutional executive case hampered their freedom of expression.
The two lawyers are Matthew Smith, co-founder of the organization of Fortavai rights and the International Human Rights Organization Akila Radkirishnan.
They declared that the case prevents them from speaking with the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, in particular by providing advice and legal evidence, in violation of their rights guaranteed by the first amendment to the American Constitution.
Trump’s order to impose economic sanctions and large-scale travel sanctions on people working in legal inquiries against the citizens of the United States or its allies, like Israel.
The Observatory of the Department of Foreign Assets of the US Treasury added to the register of individuals and to the subjective penalty entities a few days later.
Trump’s order has also said that American citizens who provide services to Khan or other people subject to sanctions can face civil and criminal sanctions.
Convoys and undertaking
The court and dozens of states have condemned the sanctions, undertook to support its employees and to “continue to do justice and hope for millions of innocent people of atrocities worldwide”.
Smith and Radikrichnan said in the trial they had posed today that they had been forced following Trump’s order to stop working in the field of human rights in which the prosecutor’s office participated in the court, and they sought to do justice to the atrocities.
Smith, who lives in Maine, explained that he had previously provided evidence of the office on the atrocities committed against the Muslim minority Rohingya in Myanmar.
Radecrichnan said that she had advised the office in an investigation into “violence based on sex committed against Afghan women in the Taliban’s times”.
“This executive case not only hinders our work, but in fact compromises international justice efforts and hinders the way of responsibility before groups faced with unimaginable horrors,” Smith added in a press release.