re the ICC, and "who cares what the French do in the Ivory Coast?"
As I posted in
Message 19454408
the French seem to have the same worries as the U.S., and are taking the same approach (on a lesser scale) to subverting the ICC. The French have negotiated with the Afghanistan government (or, I should say, "government", since Karzai's power is largely a polite fiction), the same immunity for their soldiers in Afghanistan, as the U.S. has insisted on for all our UN peacekeepers all over the planet. Probably, anywhere they are worried they might get accused of war crimes, the French will make efforts to negotiate these same Article 98 exemptions. I am not supporting the French. Their actions are as deeply hypocritical as the U.S.
If all the Powers, the States with the ability to project military power far beyond their borders, all take the U.S. and French approach, this guts the ICC. The whole point of the ICC, is to create a level playing field, the same rules for everyone.
Of course, those who don't want to follow any rules, will claim to be persecuted, claim "special circumstances", and try to negotiate exemptions for themselves (while still pretending to support the general principle of equal justice). Anybody who tries to get Israel to stop committing war crimes (as defined by the ICC), I am 100% certain, will get loudly and continuously accused of anti-semitism. Israel insists that apartheid and colonialism are still essential parts of Zionism, and has been largely successful (in the U.S.) in equating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism. |
