(...) JUDGES CHALLENGE LEGAL BASIS

The lawsuit ⁠argues that the sanctions were against the law as they exceeded the scope of IEEPA and were not based on a genuine national emergency or extraordinary threat. "The Sanctions Regime ... is designed to exert extra-judicial pressure ​on these judges and their colleagues on the ICC bench by targeting their financial and other ​personal interests, with ⁠the objective of punishing them for prior judicial decisions and coercing them into prioritizing their private interests over deciding cases on the basis of the law and facts," the lawsuit said." (...)

CONTEXT( should have started with this maybe).

• From the OP article. " The Trump administration imposed sanctions on several judges at the International Criminal Court last year in an unprecedented retaliation over the war tribunal's issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to ​open a case into alleged war crimes by U.S. troops in Afghanistan."

• Also this 8 month old article by The Guardian explains how these judges were being sanciones and basically treated as terrorists. Its titled " Credit cards cancelled, Google accounts closed: ICC judges on life under Trump sanctions"

" For years, she has sat as a judge at the international criminal court, weighing accusations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity; now she is on the same list as terrorists and those involved in organised crime. “It really was a moment of a bit of disbelief,” she said.

The fallout was both material and psychological. As her credit cards, Amazon and Google accounts were cancelled, she reeled from what she described as a “direct and flagrant attack” on one of the world’s most prominent courts." (..)