A peace activist who was fined by the U.S. government for bringing humanitarian aid to Iraq is petitioning the Supreme Court to take up his case. In 1997 Bert Sacks brought medicine to Iraqi civilians in defiance of the U.S. sanctions. The U.S. government fined him $10,000, but Sacks has refused to pay. He has argued that the actual crime was not his humanitarian efforts but the U.S. sanctions. It has been estimated that the sanctions led to the death of 500,000 Iraqi children.