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Washington to Renounce U.S. Role in International Criminal Court: Report
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The
ICC will be an independent judiciary body capable of trying
individuals.
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WASHINGTON,
May 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The U.S. government will
formally renounce any involvement in a treaty setting up an
international criminal court and is expected to declare that the
document signed by the Clinton administration is no longer valid, a
U.S. daily newspaper, The New York Times reported Sunday, May 5.
The
"unsigning" of the treaty, which is expected to be announced
on Monday, May 6, means the United States will not recognize the
court's jurisdiction and will not submit to any of its orders, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
It
also represents a rejection by the current White House of the concept
of a permanent tribunal designed to prosecute individuals for
genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes.
The
George W. Bush administration has long argued that the International
Criminal Court (ICC) has the potential to create havoc for the United
States, exposing American soldiers and officials overseas to
capricious and mischievous prosecutions.
"We
think it was a mistake to have signed it," an administration
official told the daily.
"We
have said we will not submit it to the Senate for ratification."
Other
officials told the Times that the United States will simultaneously
assert that it will not be bound by the Vienna Convention on the Law
of Treaties, a 1969 pact that outlines the obligations of nations to
obey other international treaties.
A
government official told the Times that the White House planned to
make its decision known in a speech by Under Secretary of State Marc
Grossman in Washington Monday and in a briefing for foreign
journalists by Pierre-Richard Prosper, the State Department's
ambassador for war crimes issues.
The
Times also quoted officials as saying that the United States will at
the same time assert that it will not be bound by the Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties, which is a 1969 pact that outlines
the obligations of nations to obey international treaties.
Specifically,
Article 18 of the Vienna Convention requires nations like the United
States to not undermine treaties they sign, even if they do not ratify
them. The United States signed but did not ratify either the Vienna
Convention or the treaty for the International Criminal Court.
A
law professor in Yale University, Harold Hongju Koh, said reneging on
the signature on the treaty would be a profound error.
"The
result is that the administration is losing a major opportunity to
shape the court so it could be useful to the United States," the
Times quoted Koh as saying.
"Now
that the court exists, it's important to deal with it. If the
administration leaves it unmanaged, it may create difficulties for us
and nations like Israel."
David
J. Scheffer, who was ambassador at large for war crimes and who signed
the treaty for the Clinton administration, said that retracting the
U.S. signature would not only undermine international justice but also
damage American interests.
"The
perception will be that the United States walked away from
international justice and forfeited its leadership role," he
said. "It will be a dramatic moment in international legal
history."
The
International Criminal Court (ICC) will come into being on July 1,
2002.
Unlike the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial
organ of the United Nations, which was designed to deal primarily with
disputes between states and has no jurisdiction over matters involving
individual criminal responsibility, the ICC will be an independent
judiciary body capable of trying individuals.
In the past 50 years alone, more than 250 conflicts have erupted
around the world; more than 86 million civilians, mostly women and
children died in these conflicts; and over 170 million people were
stripped of their rights, property and dignity, reported the ICC on
its site.
The United Nations General Assembly first recognized the need for a
permanent mechanism to prosecute mass murderers and war criminals in
1948,following the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II.
Since that time, numerous laws, treaties, conventions and protocols
have defined and forbade everything from war crimes to poison gas and
chemical weapons, yet no system was proposed to enforce these norms by
holding individuals criminally responsible.
It was not until the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court that a permanent, international mechanism capable of
prosecuting violators of international humanitarian law was created.
The Court will deal with the most serious crimes committed by
individuals: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and
aggression. The first three crimes are carefully defined in the
Statute to avoid ambiguity or vagueness.
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