Defending War-Crimes Prosecutors from Misused Sanctions
Our client Eric Iverson is a fifth-generation South Dakotan and the first person in his family not to work as a farmer or rancher. He is a veteran of the U.S. Army, including the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps, and he has been a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) since 2010. At the ICC, he leads a team of prosecutors who investigate war crimes and other atrocities committed in Darfur since 2002.
In February 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order imposing financial sanctions against ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, putting him on the same Treasury Department sanctions list that is used to punish human rights violators, international terrorists, and drug kingpins. Because Khan is Iverson’s ultimate supervisor, Iverson is at risk of being prosecuted criminally or subjected to large civil penalties if he continues doing his job, because he could be seen as providing “services” to a sanctioned person. As a result, Iverson and many of his colleagues have had to stop their work, including their investigations of atrocities being committed right now in Sudan’s ongoing civil war.
We have sued the U.S. government on Iverson’s behalf, alleging that his First Amendment rights to free expression, including his right to practice law, are being violated by the U.S. sanctions. Iverson is seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the U.S. government from prosecuting him or imposing sanctions-related financial penalties on him just for doing his job in support of accountability for war crimes.
Human Rights First has advocated against the Trump administration’s shocking misuse of financial sanctions to target an accountability institution like the ICC that survivors and advocates around the world depend on to seek justice. The U.S. sanctions are putting the ICC at serious risk. For the court to survive and provide justice, people need to be able to support it – including dedicated staff like Iverson, the victims and survivors of crimes, their lawyers and others who have documented atrocities, and companies providing business services.
Find our other resources on the ICC here.
On May 13, 2025, the Trump administration conceded through the issuance of a Treasury Department license that Iverson was correct, allowing us to withdraw the case.