THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
UPDATE JULY 14, 2002
So the UN has given ground, and quite properly agreed to a on-year compromise: no indictment or prosecution by the new International Criminal Court of peacekeepers from any country which is not a signatory to the new court. Good. That gives the nimble-nellies of the UN and the EU time to figure it all out before the issue arises again.
The argument raged. The US, which does most of the heavy lifting for the rest of the world in rough international situations, refuses to put its personnel at risk from a court which no one will apparently control, but which could willy-nilly irritate, embarrass and probably prosecute anyone for anything which some America-hater took umbrage at.
The court has of course just come into existence, supported by Canada, England, France, the European Union, and a large number of other countries.
The bad boy is the United States, quietly supported by India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Russia, China and Israel. But it is the US which takes the criticism in the neck and in the seat of the pants, mostly from the jealous, the envious and the disgruntled little oligarchies and killers of the third world. And from, of course, the upright, decent, righteous, Euro press and its chattering class.
In their view, the US is a moral leper.
They make contradictory demands: they want the US to “stay home”, keep out of the world scene, quit exercising its power and influence. At the same time, there is not a natural catastrophe, nor a civil war, nor a plague, nor a predation by a violent African dictator trying to annihilate a minority in his country, for which the world does not demand the US “do something”.
In such circumstances, aware of its low popularity in, for instance, Muslim and certain Euro countries, knowing how easily these countries slaver at the mouth for the chance to “indict America”, it is easily understandable why the US refuses to surrender its sovereignty to a court which it opposes and will not recognize.
Who then opposes the ICC, only the US? In fact, 85% of the world has not signed on. Who supports it? Barely 15% of the world. And we all know the upright ‘democracies’ outside the West who have signed on: Libya, Syria, the Muslim oligarchies of the Middle East, Zimbabwe, Cuba and a passel of crooked muscle-men leaders, dictators, killers, warlords and thieves.
Who will oversee and control the ICC? No one. Not the UN. Not any legal sovereign jurisdiction by itself or in concert, not the signatories in the West, and certainly not the political entities who have not signed on. And remember, who might be the judges be? And who is there to limit their power once appointed? The UN itself admits the court, once established, is sovereign unto itself. And unaccountable to anyone.
Those who bring charges, which indeed can be and often are politically inspired, and those who judge, may include representatives of such ‘democrats’ as Castro, Gadaffi, Mugabe, and their ilk.
And whom do they hate and wish to impale at The Hague? The United States, which heavily supports peace-keeping, and is forever roped in to help feed and police the world. A good many Americans would prefer to stay home.
General Lewis McKenzie, Canada’s 1992 peacekeeping leader in the Kosovo disaster, was himself charged with “genocide”. It took his UN employers years to get the false and unfair charges dismissed. Even then, and though now bearing a letter of support and apology from Kofi Annan himself, McKenzie is considered a “war criminal” in many places in the world which themselves harbour, support and practice terrorism and war crimes.
In a year’s time, the matter will arise again. It will be interesting to see when, and if, the new court indicts such war criminals as Jiang Zemin of China for raping Tibet, Mugabe for killing his opposition in Zimbabwe and starving his country, Castro for depriving a whole nation of civil rights for forty years, and the leaders of NATO for waging war on the government and citizens of the former Yugoslavia.
Don’t hold your breath
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