UN International Criminal Court

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UN International Criminal Court (ICC)

The Conservative Caucus
450 Maple Avenue East * Vienna, Va. 22180 * 703-938-9626

"Unsigning the treaty does release the United States from its obligation under customary law (as codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties) to ‘refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose’ of the treaty. But what will the administration actually do now to ‘defeat the object and purpose’ of the Rome treaty? Grossman didn’t say. …"

"What the Bush administration did not say – at least not at all clearly – is what it will do if the ICC does indict Americans and signatory states then follow through with arrests. The administration does not seem to have thought that far ahead. But it may not have more than a few months to figure out a response. …"

"[T]he 70 or so states that have ratified are essentially Euros and their former colonies in Africa, along with a sprinkling of nice little states like New Zealand and Ecuador. … the war on terror makes it essential to act against the ICC."

"Neither President Bush nor Secretary of State Colin Powell made the official ‘un-signing’ announcement. Instead, that task was delegated to a minor Foggy Bottom apparatchik – Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, who made the announcement in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. On the same day, Under Secretary of State John Bolton delivered a terse letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announcing that the U.S. would ‘not become a party’ to the ICC treaty, and would recognize ‘no legal obligations arising from its signature on December 31, 2000.’ "

"While the position stated in the Bolton letter is unambiguous, it failed to address the fact that the ICC institution claims ‘universal jurisdiction’ to prosecute war crimes and other crimes against humanity. Included within the scope of the ICC’s presumed powers would be citizens of nations whose governments have neither signed nor ratified the treaty."

"Furthermore, despite the Bush administration’s rejection of the ICC treaty in its present form, it has not rejected participation in UN tribunals on a case-by-case basis. In his speech to the CSIS, Grossman reviewed the U.S. role in creating international tribunals ‘in Nuremberg, the Far East, and the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda….’ He insisted that ‘a properly created [international] court could be a useful tool in promoting human rights and holding the perpetrators of the worst violations accountable before the world – and perhaps one day such a court will come into being.’ (Emphasis added.) Thus the Bush administration, while objecting to the ICC for the moment, explicitly endorsed the ICC in principle."

"While Grossman reverently invoked the UN Charter and its framers, he didn’t mention the U.S. Constitution even once. Grossman did mention, in passing, John Adams’ warning that ‘power must never be trusted without a check,’ and pointed out that the ICC treaty ‘places enormous unchecked power in the hands of the ICC prosecutor and judges.’ But Grossman insisted that the UN Charter intended for the Security Council to provide the necessary ‘checks and balances.’ Because the ICC prosecutor is independent of Security Council oversight, complained Grossman, ‘the role of the Security Council was usurped,’ and the ICC represents a departure ‘from the system that the framers of the UN Charter envisioned.’ …"

"The most serious objection to the ICC treaty is the only one necessary. It represents an effort to destroy our Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson specifically protested in the Declaration that King George sought ‘to subject us to Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws … [and to transport] us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses….’ "

ORDINARY U.S. CITIZENS LOSE THE MOST WHEN THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC IS SUBVERTED

"Rather than cutting off U.S. participation in UN-sponsored international tribunals, Grossman promised greater involvement by the Bush administration. He endorsed future initiatives in which the UN would collaborate with national governments to create ‘hybrid’ judicial institutions to try those accused of violating international law. Grossman even promised that the Bush administration would work to create ‘a pool of experienced judges and prosecutors to serve in such international courts.’ " Source: William Norman Grigg, The New American, 6/3/02, p. 9

PROPOSED U.N. COURT WOULD HAVE AUTHORITY TO BYPASS U.S. GOVERNMENT AND PROSECUTE AMERICAN CITIZENS---WITHOUT CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS

The New York Times (6/15/98, p. 1) reports (dateline Rome, 6/14/98) that in "one of the most ambitious efforts ever undertaken to extend the rule of international law, the United Nations will open a conference here on Monday to thrash out rules for an international court to prosecute crimes against humanity.

"The United Nations envisions a kind of global Nuremberg – a permanent court where individuals accused of atrocities and genocide can be tried and punished...."

"American soldiers around the globe could be hauled before international judges on politically motivated charges...."

"[A]t least 42 nations in what has been called the ‘like-minded group’ are battling for an independent court, arguing that unless the court and its prosecutors are free from interference from the Security Council, its authority would be toothless.

"The argument for a strong court is supported by many in the United Nations leadership as well as 260 non-governmental groups and human rights associations...."

"It has taken 50 years for the United Nations to get this far toward a criminal court. (The existing World Court, a United Nations institution in The Hague formally known as the International Court of Justice, rules on disputes between countries.)

"In 1948, the General Assembly created a commission to examine setting up an international court modeled on those at Nuremberg and in Japan after World War II. The cold war made consensus impossible....

"Prodded by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, the Security Council set up an ad hoc tribunal in [T]he Hague in 1993 that is trying people accused of war crimes in the Balkans. In 1994, a similar ad hoc tribunal was set up in Tanzania to try people charged with taking part in the genocide in Rwanda.

"But a permanent court of independent judges with broad powers to indict and prosecute – without the Security Council's blessing – has raised doubts in the State Department and the Pentagon. And there is already fierce opposition in some corners of Capitol Hill."

NATIONAL VETO ISN'T ENOUGH IF U.S. PRESIDENT AGREES TO SURRENDER A U.S. CITIZEN

"Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has vowed that any plan for an international criminal court will be ‘dead on arrival’ in the Senate unless Washington has veto power over it.

"No country is openly opposed to the notion of an international court. For one thing, it is difficult to argue against the basic principle....Today, Pope John Paul II gave his blessing to the project.

"Part of the American resistance lies in an age-old reluctance to surrender sovereignty....Though there is broad consensus that the court should step in only when national courts cannot or will not, and then only on major charges like genocide, there are loopholes in the draft treaty."

"For example, it leaves open the possibility for the court to prosecute the crime of ‘aggression,’ which in the United States view could be used by judges to prosecute American soldiers engaged in military missions. Most legal experts predict that the aggression clause will be dropped, but it is one of hundreds of articles that will have to be hashed out before a treaty can be produced by the close of the conference on July 17."

According to The New York Times (4/14/98, p. A11), when "the Pentagon urgently called in more than 100 foreign military attachés from embassies here two weeks ago, they expected to be briefed on the next crisis threatening world peace.

"Instead, the decorated military aides were surprised by Pentagon warnings of a potential menace to their troops that most had never considered: the proposed International Criminal Court, scheduled to be established as a permanent tribunal to try tyrants like Pol Pot for gross human rights abuses or Saddam Hussein for war crimes.

"The Pentagon warned the attachés that if the court was set up and was not properly restrained, it could target their own soldiers – particularly when they were acting as peacekeepers – and subject them to frivolous or politically motivated investigations by a rogue prosecutor or an overzealous tribunal....

"The Pentagon is pitted against human rights advocates who contend that the American military establishment has set off an unnecessary uproar that may ultimately weaken efforts to create the first permanent world tribunal to deal with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity...."

"A three-page memorandum passed out to the attachés at the Pentagon brief-ings says: ‘The U.S. is committed to the successful establishment of a court. But we are also intent on avoiding the creation of the wrong kind of court.’

"The wrong court, in the view of the Administration and particularly the Pentagon, would put tiny players on the world stage like Benin or Trinidad and Tobago on an equal footing with the United States. And that, they fear, could lead to unfounded accusations against soldiers assigned as peacekeepers in difficult situations....

"In the three-page memorandum, the Pentagon warned other militaries against independent prosecutors with ‘unbridled discretion to start investigations’ and contended that ‘some delegations have supported overly broad and vague definitions of war crimes.’"

In behalf of The Conservative Caucus, I recently (6/12/98) joined Cliff Kincaid of the American Sovereignty Action Project (ASAP) in expressing opposition to U.S. participation in the proposed International Criminal Court:

"Approval of the proposed U.N. International Criminal Court by the President and Senate would be in fundamental conflict with their Constitutional oaths.

"The Constitution of the United States makes clear that ‘All legislative Powers shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.’ Powers which are vested cannot be transferred.

"Article III of the U.S. Constitution stipulates in Section 1 that ‘The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.’

"The proposed U.N. International Criminal Court is not under the Constitution of the United States, as is the U.S. Supreme Court and the various inferior courts, nor would it be structured to be subordinate to our Congress.

"For these fundamental reasons, the President should have refused to participate in negotiations to establish this court, and the Senate has a duty to peremptorily reject any treaty which would result in the diminution of our liberty and independence by casting aside the principle of Constitutional accountability and surrendering the sovereignty of our law system.

"The Biblical foundations of our Constitution and the protections it provides to our rights should not be sacrificed to promote an anti-Christian New World Order, with an International Criminal Court enforcing ‘laws’ enacted by the United Nations."