The Eric Iverson lawsuit was a May 2025 federal case in which an American trial attorney at the International Criminal Court sued the Trump administration to block U.S. sanctions that threatened him with criminal prosecution for continuing his work prosecuting war crimes in Darfur. The case ended eight days after it was filed when the Treasury Department issued Iverson a license exempting him from the sanctions, and he voluntarily dismissed the suit.
Who Eric Iverson Is and Why Sanctions Reached Him
Iverson is a former U.S. Army JAG officer who has served in the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor since 2010. He leads a team investigating atrocity crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region and is reported to be the first American to try a case before the court.1Human Rights First. Human Rights First Sues Trump Administration Over Sanctions Threatening U.S. Prosecutor at International Criminal Court His Darfur portfolio has historically had bipartisan U.S. support and involves no American or allied defendants.
His problem was structural. His direct supervisor, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, had been personally designated under Executive Order 14203 as a “specially designated national.” Because the order forbade Americans from providing “services by, to, or for the benefit of” a sanctioned person, Iverson could not perform his own job without exposing himself to civil penalties on a strict-liability basis or to criminal penalties of up to 20 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines.2Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Iverson v. Trump
The Executive Order at the Center of the Case
President Trump signed Executive Order 14203, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court,” on February 6, 2025. The order declared that ICC efforts to investigate or prosecute “protected persons,” meaning U.S. nationals or citizens of allied countries that have not consented to ICC jurisdiction, constituted an extraordinary threat to U.S. national security.3The White House. Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court
Khan was the first person designated under the order. Additional designations followed. By mid-2026, 11 ICC judges and prosecutors had been sanctioned, and the consequences for them included frozen assets, cancelled credit cards, terminated European bank accounts, revoked family visas, and the loss of access to American digital services such as Apple, Amazon, and PayPal.4JusticeInfo.net. Living With US Sanctions Means Living in Constant Uncertainty Iverson was not himself designated, but the order’s reach through Khan was enough to freeze his work.
What the Lawsuit Argued
Human Rights First filed Iverson v. Trump (Case No. 1:25-cv-01353) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on May 5, 2025. Iverson was represented by Allison Ferber Miller of Human Rights First and by lead counsel Joshua Colangelo-Bryan.5CourtListener. Iverson v. Trump6Democracy 2025. Iverson v. Trump The complaint named President Trump, the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of State.
Two legal arguments were at the core of the case:
- The executive order violated the First Amendment by imposing a content-based restriction on Iverson’s professional speech, penalizing him not for what he said but for whom he said it to.
- The order exceeded the president’s authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the statute the administration invoked to justify the sanctions.2Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Iverson v. Trump
Iverson also alleged that Treasury had failed to act promptly on his request for an exemption that would have allowed him to continue working on cases involving non-U.S. persons. Alongside the complaint, he filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and a motion for a preliminary injunction. He was the only plaintiff among the multiple challenges to EO 14203 who sought emergency relief of that kind.7Lawfare. Legal Challenges Mount Against Renewed U.S. Sanctions on the ICC
How the Case Ended
The case was assigned to District Judge Christopher R. Cooper, who held a hearing on the emergency motions the very next day, May 6, 2025, and took them under advisement. He set a briefing schedule requiring the government’s opposition by May 13 and Iverson’s reply by May 16.5CourtListener. Iverson v. Trump
The government’s opposition never arrived. On May 13, before its brief was due, the Trump administration issued Iverson a Treasury Department license exempting him from the sanctions.8Human Rights First. Victory for International Justice Efforts: Trump Administration Declines to Defend Sanctions on International Criminal Court Trial Attorney Iverson filed a notice of voluntary dismissal the same day, stating that the license had “mooted the need for the relief requested,” and Judge Cooper granted the dismissal and closed the case.2Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Iverson v. Trump
Colangelo-Bryan described the result this way: “After an initial hearing, the government capitulated, effectively confirming that Eric was legally entitled to do everything we had asserted he was entitled to do.”8Human Rights First. Victory for International Justice Efforts: Trump Administration Declines to Defend Sanctions on International Criminal Court Trial Attorney
What the License Does and Does Not Cover
Because the case ended without a ruling on the merits, no court held that the executive order was unconstitutional in Iverson’s case. The Treasury license was narrowly issued to Iverson personally. It does not extend broadly to other American citizens who interact with the ICC, though some U.S. lawyers have since applied for similar individual exemptions through professional associations.4JusticeInfo.net. Living With US Sanctions Means Living in Constant Uncertainty The sanctions themselves remain in effect against the designated ICC officials.
Where the Same Arguments Went in Other Cases
Iverson’s constitutional theory was tested by two parallel lawsuits that did reach rulings.
In Smith v. Trump, filed by the ACLU in the District of Maine on April 11, 2025, Judge Nancy Torresen granted a preliminary injunction on July 18, 2025. She found the plaintiffs, human rights advocates Matthew Smith and Akila Radhakrishnan, were likely to succeed on their First Amendment claims, ruling that the executive order “burden[ed] substantially more speech than necessary” and that the government had failed to explain how the plaintiffs’ work posed a national security threat.9Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Smith v. Trump10Anadolu Agency. US Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Over Trump’s International Criminal Court Sanctions After Judge Torresen’s retirement, the case was reassigned to Judge John A. Woodcock and remained ongoing as of mid-2026.
In Rona v. Trump in the Southern District of New York, Judge Jesse M. Furman went further. On July 30, 2025, he issued a permanent injunction barring the government from penalizing law professors Gabor Rona and Lisa Davis for their ICC-related work. He held that the sanctions were a content-based restriction subject to strict scrutiny, were “overinclusive,” and were not “narrowly tailored” to any compelling state interest. He rejected the government’s national security justification, noting that the order barred speech-based services even in ICC investigations the U.S. government itself supported, such as those in Ukraine and Sudan.11The New York Times. Trump ICC Lawyers12SDNY Blog. Judge Furman Permanently Enjoins Executive Order Penalizing Providing Services to Sanctioned Persons Associated With the International Criminal Court That injunction applies only to the specific plaintiffs.13Harvard Law School. U.S. Sanctions Against the International Criminal Court
Taken together, Iverson’s quick settlement and the later rulings in Maine and New York suggest the administration has been unwilling to defend the order’s application to individual Americans whose ICC work has nothing to do with U.S. or allied personnel. The order itself, and the designations issued under it, remain in place.