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US
seeks more time beyond the law
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON -
The United Nations Security Council is coming under
pressure to reject Washington's upcoming request to
exempt all its soldiers and officials from the
jurisdiction of the new body for a second straight year.
The administration of President George W Bush
says that it needs more time to negotiate bilateral
agreements with more countries around the world that
would bar them from surrendering US nationals to the
International Criminal Court (ICC), set up under the
1998 Rome Statute to investigate and prosecute
individuals for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against
humanity.
So far, 37 countries have reportedly
signed such agreements, although only a handful have
ratified them. The most important include Romania,
Israel, India, Egypt and the Philippines; most of the
rest are small, poor countries that are heavily
dependent on external aid, including US military
assistance.
"The [UN] resolution is an attempt
to satisfy domestic political ideology and legislation,
and it is another attempt by the United States to
subordinate a multilateral institution to US power,"
said William Pace, convener of Coalition for the ICC.
"It is vital that governments have an open meeting and
continue to express their principled objection to misuse
of the [UN] charter and the Security Council and the
violation of the Rome Statute," he said.
The
Coalition, human rights groups and Washington's North
Atlantic Treaty Organization allies have strongly
resisted the administration's efforts - through both the
Security Council and bilateral negotiations with weaker
nations - to gain exemptions for its military and
officials, arguing that they will undermine the ICC
itself, as well as international law in general. The
court started work in The Hague in the Netherlands last
July.
Last year, Washington asked the Security
Council to approve a complete, indefinite exemption from
the court's jurisdiction for US nationals, and even
threatened to veto the renewal of UN peacekeeping
operations in Bosnia and elsewhere if it did not get its
way. But the other council members, particularly those
associated with the European Union, refused to go along.
After two weeks of intense and often bitter
negotiations, the two sides compromised by approving a
resolution that granted an exemption of one year for all
individuals from countries that had not ratified the
Rome Statute. While former president Bill Clinton signed
the statute in the last days of his term, he did not
refer it to the Senate for ratification and the Bush
administration formally renounced his signature in May
2002.
Washington has argued that the ICC, which
is likely to hear its first case early next year, gives
too much discretion to prosecutors, who may bring cases
against US officials for political reasons. With some
150,000 US troops deployed in Iraq, another 9,000 in
Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more in scores of
countries across Eurasia and in and around the Gulf, it
is worried that it will become a prime target for
politicized prosecutions. But rights groups and European
governments, including Britain, say that these fears are
greatly exaggerated.
"The US experts know that
there is practically no justification for the Security
Council exemptions and the likelihood that a US
peacekeeping soldier would come under the jurisdiction
of the court is almost zero," said Pace.
Washington now hopes to extend the Security
Council's exemption for yet another year. Last week, US
ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, told Associated
Press that the US would like "a technical extension ...
of the resolution. It's very straightforward," he said.
"We wouldn't introduce any substantive changes into the
resolution we adopted last year by unanimity in the
council, and we would assume - certainly hope - that
this would receive overwhelming support."
But
opponents are expected to lobby council members to
reject any extension. Richard Dicker of the New
York-based Human Rights Watch warned that simply
approving the extension would "increase the chance of
its becoming a permanent fixture". The rights groups and
government backers of the ICC have argued that the
Security Council lacks the legal authority to grant
exemptions because the UN charter does not grant it
power to amend an international treaty.
They
want an open debate on the issue, and early indications
are that council members Germany and Mexico will press
for one. Of the 15 members of the council, only the US,
China and Pakistan have not signed the statute. The
other 12 have either signed or ratified it. Canada, a
major champion of the ICC, is also expected to request
an open debate that would include non-Security Council
members like itself. Last year, Ottawa led a move by
several dozen countries to publicly condemn US effort to
seek exemptions for its citizens.
Washington
wants a vote before July 1, when last year's resolution
formally expires. Before then, Washington is also
expected to step up its efforts to gain new bilateral
agreements, in part because under a law passed by
Congress last year, countries that ratify the statute
will be banned from receiving US military aid unless the
president waives those sanctions before July 1.
For example, Bush is expected to press visiting
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand this week
on signing such a bilateral accord, despite recent US
criticism of his government for serious rights abuses,
including the summary execution of suspected drug
traffickers.
This provision of the so-called
American Service Members Protection Act is likely to hit
poor countries hardest, according to Pace's group, which
represents dozens of human rights groups around the
world. It is only one of several controversial
provisions in the act, including another that authorizes
the president to deploy military force to free any US
citizen in the ICC's custody.
Representatives of
many countries have complained that Washington's
campaign against the ICC and its efforts to exempt US
nationals from its jurisdiction is yet another
illustration of the unilateralist trajectory on which
the Bush administration has taken US foreign policy.
They have warned that the US attitude toward the ICC
only increases resentment abroad and makes Washington
vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy about the rule of
law.
(Inter Press Service)
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