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Thirty-eight civil society organizations won leave Wednesday from the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to file a brief telling the court that sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) are disrupting the work of groups the government has never designated and discouraging victims of crimes against humanity from turning to the Court.
The brief documents effects of the administration’s broader campaign against the ICC on organizations never sanctioned. The Coalition for the International Criminal Court, a network active in 150 countries, made all of its US-based staff redundant “to protect them from the risks of civil and criminal penalties,” according to the filing.
The brief also points to concerns among victims: ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said the Office of the Prosecutor has had to “deal with anxious victims on the phone, asking if they are safe, if their identity is safe, if the Court’s technology is secure,” which she said “has an impact on victims and on our work,” the brief states.
The brief, submitted by organizations including Amnesty International and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), was filed in support of a lawsuit filed in August, American Friends Service Committee v. Trump, joined by Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Open Society Institute against Executive Order 14203, which lets the Secretary of State sanction foreign individuals or entities found to have “directly engaged in,” or materially supported, ICC efforts against a “protected person,” defined as a “United States person” unless Washington formally consents to the ICC’s jurisdiction over them, or a “citizen or lawful resident” of a nonconsenting allied country.
The administration has used the order against several ICC judges, former Prosecutor Karim Khan, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and the Palestinian rights groups Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
The brief says the designated Palestinian groups have lost access to banking and online services, including YouTube and MailChimp, and up to 60 percent of their funding. “The whole rationale of the sanctions was to silence us, stop us from doing our work, terrify us and terrify others,” the brief quotes Al Mezan director Issam Younis as saying. Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin, also quoted in the brief, described the reaction among rights groups to the sanctioning of ICC judges: “there is nothing called a red line, there is no limit.”
The organizations argue that Executive Order 14203 violates the rights to freedom of expression and association, enshrined under Articles 19 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), in addition to the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims. They ask the court to consider these effects on civil society and victims when ruling on the pending preliminary injunction motion.
The State Department has defended the sanctions as necessary to protect US and Israeli sovereignty from what Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called the ICC’s “politicized” prosecution of American and Israeli nationals. US District Judge Jesse Furman, who granted the organizations leave to file the brief, has not ruled on that motion.
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The brief documents effects of the administration’s broader campaign against the ICC on organizations never sanctioned. The Coalition for the International Criminal Court, a network active in 150 countries, made all of its US-based staff redundant “to protect them from the risks of civil and criminal penalties,” according to the filing.
The brief also points to concerns among victims: ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said the Office of the Prosecutor has had to “deal with anxious victims on the phone, asking if they are safe, if their identity is safe, if the Court’s technology is secure,” which she said “has an impact on victims and on our work,” the brief states.
The brief, submitted by organizations including Amnesty International and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), was filed in support of a lawsuit filed in August, American Friends Service Committee v. Trump, joined by Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Open Society Institute against Executive Order 14203, which lets the Secretary of State sanction foreign individuals or entities found to have “directly engaged in,” or materially supported, ICC efforts against a “protected person,” defined as a “United States person” unless Washington formally consents to the ICC’s jurisdiction over them, or a “citizen or lawful resident” of a nonconsenting allied country.
The administration has used the order against several ICC judges, former Prosecutor Karim Khan, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and the Palestinian rights groups Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
The brief says the designated Palestinian groups have lost access to banking and online services, including YouTube and MailChimp, and up to 60 percent of their funding. “The whole rationale of the sanctions was to silence us, stop us from doing our work, terrify us and terrify others,” the brief quotes Al Mezan director Issam Younis as saying. Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin, also quoted in the brief, described the reaction among rights groups to the sanctioning of ICC judges: “there is nothing called a red line, there is no limit.”
The organizations argue that Executive Order 14203 violates the rights to freedom of expression and association, enshrined under Articles 19 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), in addition to the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims. They ask the court to consider these effects on civil society and victims when ruling on the pending preliminary injunction motion.
The State Department has defended the sanctions as necessary to protect US and Israeli sovereignty from what Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called the ICC’s “politicized” prosecution of American and Israeli nationals. US District Judge Jesse Furman, who granted the organizations leave to file the brief, has not ruled on that motion.
The post Rights groups tell court ICC sanctions stifles advocacy and blocks victims’ path to justice appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.