Contempt of court : US puts ideology before justice
Leader
Guardian
Tuesday July 2, 2002
US opposition to the international criminal court is difficult to
justify in law and in logic. So difficult, in fact, that the US has
lost the argument hands-down in the four years since the ICC's
statutes were first codified in Rome. It has, in effect, been
comprehensively outvoted after a full and lengthy debate. So far,
74 states (including close allies such as Britain) have ratified the
treaty; many more have signed it. Representing a nation proudly
committed by its constitution and traditions to democracy,
universal rights, the UN, and the concept of "international
community", George Bush has no business trying to thwart this
outcome now. To borrow a phrase, we hold these truths to be
self-evident. The US should accept the ICC and work within or
alongside it to advance its work and if necessary, improve or
adjust its legal mechanisms.
Washington's threats to wreck the UN peacekeeping mission in
Bosnia because it has not got its way over the ICC look petty;
but the implications for similar missions are serious. Colin
Powell's claim that "we are the leader in the world with respect
to bringing people to justice" may arguably have been true once
but will not be so much longer. If Mr Bush persists in obstructing
the ICC, his country will increasingly be seen not as the
champion of international law and order but its most powerful
foe. Do ordinary Americans accept Mr Bush's claim to be
protecting them from "politicised" foreign prosecutors and other
wicked wizards? The question is prejudiced by this
administration's disinclination to trust them with plain,
unadulterated facts.
"When the ICC treaty enters into force, US citizens will be
exposed to the risk of prosecution by a court that is
unaccountable to the American people and has no obligation to
respect the constitutional rights of our citizens," proclaims
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "We must be ready to
defend our people, our interests and our way of life." Amazingly,
this is not al-Qaida he is talking about, or even Iraq. He is
talking, believe it or not, about an overdue, ponderous but worthy
apparatus for punishing war crimes. He is talking about a bunch
of lawyers upon whom the burden of proof lies so heavily that
some experts predict they may never successfully conclude a
case.
The ICC is basically a permanent, global version of the Hague
tribunal for former Yugoslavia which, as in Rwanda, the US has
supported and funded. That court has yet to prosecute US
soldiers, overthrow the authority of the UN security council, or
fatally impair US sovereign rights. There is no sound reason to
expect the ICC will either. As the US knows full well, the ICC's
prosecutor may only act when a national court is unable or
unwilling to do so; and only after ICC judges agree that this is a
justifiable action of last resort. The US also knows, but
disingenuously ignores the point, that the ICC's very precise
definition of war crimes means that in practice, states or
governments rather than individual servicemen will be held
primarily responsibility for any large-scale illegality.
But attempts to understand or explain US objections can travel
only so far before colliding with the suspicious, slab-sided
rightwing psyche that informs and so badly skewers Bush
administration attitudes to most international issues. This
school of thought holds that an all-powerful US is not required to
explain its actions, is not bound by the rules governing lesser
states, has no need to persuade or convince. The business of
American leadership in this view is essentially dictatorial, not
inspirational. In this regard at least, the administration is right to
fear the judgment of its contemporaries.
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