A Maine human rights advocate can resume working with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on crimes of atrocity in Bangladesh and Myanmar.
A federal judge has blocked President Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC from applying to Matthew Smith, who runs the nonprofit Fortify Rights.
The sanctions followed the ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza.
The judge’s order allows Smith to temporarily continue working with the ICC while a lawsuit he filed against the Trump administration moves forward.
Smith and fellow plaintiff Plaintiff Akila Radhakrishnan, a New York based international human rights lawyer, filed a lawsuit in April claiming the executive order violates their free speech and exceeds the President’s authority.
Smith and Radhakrishnan, who focuses on sexual and gender-based violence in
Afghanistan, moved for a preliminary injunction after filing their lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen granted Smith and Radhakrishnan’s preliminary injunction Friday, which allows them to resume their work while the rest of their lawsuit plays out in federal court.
Torresen referenced a federal court order in 2021, which blocked a nearly identical executive order issued during the first Trump administration, that condemned the ICC’s investigation of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.
The judge sided with Smith and Radhakrishnan’s claim the executive order infringes on their free speech, saying the “executive order and its implementing regulations “burdened substantially more speech than necessary.”
Judge Torresen also agreed the executive order overstepped the President’s authority. “The Government does not explain how the Plaintiffs’ continued services to the (ICC) Prosecutor concerning atrocities in Bangladesh, Myanmar, or Afghanistan would impede national security and foreign policy interests concerning the United States and Israel,” stated Judge Torresen in her order.
The federal government’s attorneys have until August 1 to respond to Torresen’s order. So far, there’s been no appeal to her Friday decision.
