TL;DR: A Maine federal court refused to dismiss the main First Amendment claims against ICC-related sanctions. Two US human-rights lawyers can keep fighting Executive Order 14203, which threatens stiff penalties for helping the ICC prosecutor. A July 2025 injunction already protects them for now. The merits are still undecided.
Status note: Checked 30 September 2026 against the ACLU press release on the Maine District Court order of 29 September. Later motions, appeals, or a merits ruling can still change the picture.
What the court allowed to go forward
The suit, brought by the ACLU and the ACLU of Maine, challenges Executive Order 14203. That order exposes US persons to heavy penalties for engaging with the ICC Office of the Prosecutor, including through legal advice, analysis, or evidence. The administration asked the Maine court to dismiss the case. On Monday the court said no to that bid on the central claims.
Two findings matter most for readers who only skim the docket. The court said there is a strong likelihood that the executive order violated the First Amendment. It also said a reasonable reading of the order clashes with the statute the administration invoked to justify it. Those are not throwaway lines. They explain why dismissal failed and why the litigation has oxygen.
The court also rejected arguments that the plaintiffs lacked standing or that the dispute was not ripe. Standing asks whether these two people are the right parties to sue. Ripeness asks whether the fight is ready for a court now. Both dismissal theories lost. The case stays live.
Who Smith and Radhakrishnan are
Matthew Smith works on accountability for crimes against Myanmar's Rohingya community. Akila Radhakrishnan works on accountability for Afghan women under Taliban rule. Both say their work requires contact with the ICC prosecutor's office: sharing analysis, evidence, or legal views that help investigations move.
That is the practical collision. The ICC is the Hague-based court that tries individuals for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity when national courts cannot or will not. Its prosecutor's office (OTP) is the unit that investigates and brings cases. EO 14203 treats certain US engagement with that office as sanctionable conduct. For lawyers and advocates whose beat is Myanmar or Afghanistan, the order is not abstract. It sits on the path between their files and the investigators who might use them.
The July 2025 preliminary injunction already stopped the government from punishing Smith and Radhakrishnan for ICC communications while the case proceeds. Monday's denial of dismissal keeps that fight on track rather than ending it at the courthouse door.
How the sanctions fight started
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC. About 125 countries are. Washington has still, at times, supported pieces of the court's work even while staying outside the treaty. That mixed history is the backdrop for EO 14203: a sanctions tool aimed at cutting US persons off from helping the prosecutor's office.
Smith and Radhakrishnan, with the ACLU and the ACLU of Maine, sued on First Amendment grounds. Their claim is that the order chills protected speech and association: legal advice, analysis, and evidence sharing with an international prosecutor. The administration defended the order and tried to end the case early. The Maine court had already entered a preliminary injunction in July 2025. Monday's order keeps the central claims alive after the dismissal push.
For a first-time reader, the sequence is simple. The executive order lands. Two advocates say it muzzles their ICC work. A federal judge in Maine blocks punishment for now. The government moves to dismiss. The court refuses. The merits trial path remains open.
Speech, statutes, and what the judge flagged
First Amendment law here is about more than slogans. The plaintiffs argue that advising, analysing, and submitting evidence to the ICC prosecutor is speech and petition activity the Constitution protects. The court found a strong likelihood that EO 14203 crossed that line. That finding is why a dismissal at this stage looked wrong on the free-speech claim.
There is a second track: statutory fit. Courts ask whether an executive order lines up with the law Congress wrote for the powers the White House claims. The Maine court said a reasonable interpretation of EO 14203 is incompatible with the statute the administration invoked. In plain terms, the order may not sit on the legal footing the government says it does. That is still an early-stage reading, not a final judgment. It is enough to keep the claims alive.
None of this settles every sanctions question for every American who might ever talk to the ICC. The injunction and the live case focus on these plaintiffs and this order. Broader policy fights in Congress or other courts are separate.
Where things stand
As of 29 September 2026, the US District Court for the District of Maine has refused to dismiss the central First Amendment claims in Smith v. Trump. Matthew Smith and Akila Radhakrishnan keep their challenge to EO 14203. The July 2025 preliminary injunction that bars punishing them for ICC communications remains part of the story. Standing and ripeness arguments failed. The court has flagged a strong likelihood of a First Amendment violation and a statutory mismatch. It has not issued a final merits ruling.
A denial of dismissal is not a permanent injunction forever, and it is not a Supreme Court last word. It is a mid-fight win that keeps the speech challenge in court. The United States remains outside the Rome Statute. The ICC still has roughly 125 member countries. What Monday settled is narrower: this Maine case against ICC-related sanctions on US advocates continues.
Sources: ACLU on the Maine court's denial of dismissal in the ICC sanctions First Amendment case.