Three judges at the International Criminal Court sued the Trump administration in New York federal court this week. They're challenging sanctions that the U.S. imposed on them — freezing their money in America, canceling their visas, and blocking them from using U.S. banks.

The judges are Kimberly Prost from Canada, Solomy Balungi Bossa from Uganda, and Reine Adélaïde Alapini-Gansou from Benin. According to their lawsuit reported by Reuters on June 24, 2026, they say the U.S. imposed these punishments because it disagreed with their court decisions about Israel and America. The Open Society Justice Initiative confirmed the lawsuit and identified the judges' countries.

The Trump administration announced these sanctions in February 2025. The White House said the ICC's recent actions toward Israel and the U.S. created a dangerous problem and that targeting ICC officials was necessary. By August 2025, the ICC's leadership put together an official document (ICC-02/18) listing what the sanctions did: revoked visas, froze bank accounts, and stopped the judges from using U.S. financial systems.

Why These Three Judges?

Prost and Bossa weren't picked at random. Both voted in 2020 for a court decision that let the ICC prosecutor start investigating the U.S. and Israel — something America had fought hard to prevent. Prost had worked at the ICC for years before becoming a judge; she was even the top aide to the ICC's president. Alapini-Gansou is a senior judge from Benin who has spent her career working on human rights cases in Africa.

The judges' legal argument is this: it's illegal for the U.S. to use sanctions to punish judges for decisions they already made or to force them to decide future cases a certain way, according to Al Jazeera. They're not saying the president can never use sanctions. They're saying it's different when sanctions target judges specifically because of the rulings they issued. By filing in Manhattan, they're asking U.S. federal judges to decide if this kind of punishment goes too far.

What Happens Now

The law here is murky. The president has a lot of power to impose sanctions for national security reasons, and courts usually trust that judgment. But the judges have a different argument: even if sanctions are normally allowed, it's illegal to use them to punish judges for doing their job. That's the key question a federal judge will have to answer.

The real impact is concrete. A judge with frozen bank accounts and no valid visa can't travel or access money — it's not just symbolic pain. The court might let the judges keep operating while the case moves through the system for years. Or it might block the sanctions. If it does, that means an American court would be telling the president he can't keep these sanctions in place — a big moment either way.

This lawsuit is part of something larger. Using sanctions against judges at international courts is new. Other countries are watching to see how an American court handles this. Whatever happens could shape how governments treat international judges in the future.