By Helen Shamamyan
WASHINGTON, DC – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives this week, urging members to vote “no” on H.R. 8282, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act.
The bill would impose sanctions on any efforts to “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies” by the International Criminal Court (ICC,) according to a press release on the ACLU website.
The ACLU asks representatives to “oppose the bill as it would harm free speech protections and the rule of law,” toying with First Amendment rights by deterring “U.S. persons from engaging in constitutionally protected speech under the threat of civil and criminal penalties under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act,” as well as “undermin(ing) the rule of law and the independence of the ICC.”
The letter breaks down the consequences of H.R. 8282 becoming a law, stating that any U.S. citizen living internationally “could not transact with sanctioned parties or entities because of IEEPA criminal and civil penalties. The prohibitions in the statute would sweep incredibly broadly.
“In effect, U.S. persons would not be able to continue working in their ICC positions and any work that non-ICC U.S. persons are doing with the sanctioned ICC personnel could also be subject to criminal and civil penalty.”
The prohibitions outlined by the bill would also, insisted the ACLU, notedly apply to “any ‘foreign person’ who acts or ‘purports to have acted’… on behalf of another ‘person’ who ‘engages in any effort by the International Criminal Court to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person.’
“The legislation is entirely unclear about what it means to act ‘indirectly’ on behalf of someone engaged in an effort to investigate a protected person, but the executive branch could interpret this,” which, according to the ACLU, creates a series of dangerous conditions for the constitutionally protected speech with the ICC.
The ACLU found it alarming that “the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act could easily affect not just the application for arrest warrants related to the conflict in Palestine and Israel, but multiple other cases before the prosecutor’s office regarding genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity involving many of the same officials and staff who would face sanctions under this legislation.”
According to the letter, those very sanctions would “largely prohibit U.S. persons from working with the ICC,” having major implications for existing ICC prosecutions, such as “arrest warrants related to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which has strong bipartisan support across Congress.”
Additionally, the bill threatens “immediate U.S. visa revocation and any immigration benefit for sanctioned persons and their ‘immediate family members,’ meaning spouses and children,” said Kia Hamadanchy, Senior Policy Counsel of the ACLU, equating it to “collective punishment targeting” of individuals not involved in the conduct of the accused persons.
Hamadanchy asserted in the letter “there has been a complete lack of adequate process with this legislation” because there has not been “a single hearing in the House of Representatives on this bill, nor was it marked up in either the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the House Judiciary Committee.”
In short, the ACLU argued there has been “no opportunity for a robust debate regarding its shortcomings and whether alternative approaches could avoid the clear First Amendment concerns that currently exist.”
The measure, said the ACLU, would jeopardize “U.S. relations with close allies who ratified the Rome Statute which created the ICC… including the majority of NATO allies like Germany and France.”
The ACLU urged the opposition to H.R. 8282 on the grounds of deflecting any “attempt to attack the independence of the ICC, its judges, lawyers, or staff, including the use of sanctions or other measures that would impede, intimidate, improperly influence, or retaliate against them for performing their duties.”
Hamadanchy wrote that not only does the ACLU champion the prevention of passing this bill to the Senate, but they also offer to “score the vote.”
