- America's conservatives see the creation of the first
global criminal court as another step towards a sinister "world government"
that threatens US sovereignty.
-
- They denounce the new tribunal as a "kangaroo court"
set up by a deeply suspect United Nations. "The White House is bowing
to conservatives who have a kneejerk reaction to any international body
that has even the most remote authority to tell the United States what
to do," The New York Times commented.
-
- But the opposition in this case extends across the political
spectrum. Congress has taken the extraordinary step of passing legislation
that would authorise military action to free any American taken into custody.
"Even Hillary Clinton voted for it," one congressional aide said.
"The idea that it's some right-wing paranoid fear about the International
Criminal Court (ICC) is not true.
-
- "In the US political context, the supporters of
the ICC are a small minority - one fifth of the Senate. The other four
fifths were ready to pile in. The court is seen as an assault on the United
States and US sovereignty."
-
- As the world's sole remaining superpower, the United
States has the same suspicion as 19th-century Britain did of "foreign
entanglements". This longstanding isolationist tendency prevented
the United States from joining the League of Nations and has left it deeply
sceptical about the UN, which many conservatives see as an ungodly organisation
once dominated by communists and now largely controlled by unreliable Europeans.
-
- US negotiators tried and failed to give the UN Security
Council control over which cases come before the court, which would have
allowed Washington to use its UN veto to block the prosecution of Americans.
-
- As a result, the US was not among the 120 states that
endorsed the creation of the court at a 1998 conference in Rome. But President
Clinton did eventually sign on as his last act in office so that the United
States could remain engaged in negotiations.
-
- Once it became clear that the court would come into existence
without the changes sought by Washington, the Bush Administration told
the UN it was "unsigning" the Rome Treaty.
-
- William Pace, head of the non-governmental Coalition
for the International Criminal Court, said: "What has happened is
an international organisation is being established that the United States
cannot control through the Security Council. This is the real ideological
offence that is being taken. Even though it's not going to be able to tell
the US Government what to do, the fact that US citizens can be subject
to international jurisdiction is unacceptable to the United States."
-
- Because the new tribunal has jurisdiction over crimes
that take place on the territory of a state party, American nationals might
be brought to justice even though the United States rejects the court.
-
- While the Pentagon worries that American soldiers might
be prosecuted for purely political motives - that was the reason given
for the vetoing the UN mission in Bosnia - there is an equally compelling
fear driving US policy.
-
- In the wake of Britain's arrest of Augusto Pinochet,
the former Chilean dictator, the attempted legal action in Belgium against
Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, and the renewed controversy over
Henry Kissinger's role in the Vietnam War, Washington is also concerned
that former ministers might be the targets of prosecution. Donald Rumsfeld,
the Defence Secretary, for instance, might be arrested while travelling
abroad on spurious charges stemming from the War on Terror.
-
- "Americans, by virtue of America's international
reach, certainly would become in due course the foremost targets,"
the Dallas Morning News said.
-
- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-344149,00.html
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