The United States should submit to the jurisdiction of an International Court

Submitting to a International Criminal Court does not mean surrendering a country's rights to a justice system, because any conflict between the court and the country involved would be over one of two things. First, in the case of international affairs, where the justice systems of more than one country would be involved, so at least one county would have to submit to the will of another with or without an international court. Second, in the case where the country in question is involved in some kind of atrocious action, in which case the court would NEED to get involved and would have the right to do so; according to the Court's official website, the International Criminal Court "tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes." http://www.icc-cpi.int... So, under a reasonably-governed court with an equally reasonable rulebook, the only situations where our national sovereignty would be at risk of violation would be in a case where either a) sovereignty would be at risk of violation whether the court was or was not involved, or b) sovereignty would NEED and deserve to be violated. Regarding my point about the Civil War: In the case of the Civil War, the states, which at the time viewed themselves as possessing sovereignty, did not want to submit to the power of the United States government, for the same reason my opponent does not wish to for the United States to submit to the International Criminal Court - they viewed their sovereignty as being too important. This was actually a major issue during the initial formation of our country. The analogy stands because of a similar basic squabble over authority in a given region - who should have it, the centralized power or the local, sovereign one? In any case, the Court, if properly managed, would only get involved if any kind of MAJOR issue occurred - one so major that our Supreme Court's opinion became irrelevant. Suppose, God forbid, that genocide were to occur within the confines of the United States of America. That would only be possible in a situation where we as a nation screwed up so badly as to allow that to happen, in which case the Supreme Court's authority would be very shaky. If we committed War Crimes, then that would be the International Court's business as well. Any other situation would just not fall into the Court's jurisdiction, so we wouldn't have to worry about our sovereignty being stripped. It would simply not happen unless there was a good reason for it, and the United states would be allowed to "abide by its own laws." "about 50,000 Nazis escaped true justice, because of this International Court. If we had set up a NEW government, had a NEW court, we could have easily had them take care of the Nazis, rather than messing it up with our International Court." My opponent has once again failed to explain the connection between the nature of a court (international vs national) and the court's success. How would a National Court have handled the Nuremberg trials differently from the way the International Court did? How would they have done a better job rounding up the Nazis? And in any case, how would Germany's four post-war puppet governments have been any different to an International Court? The logic of my opponent's claims is escaping me. "For example, Russia, China, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, the countries of the Middle East, many African Countries, and some Eastern Bloc states which haven't joined NATO, tried the United States. They would have a clear majority against the United States, NATO and its allies" Again, there would be nothing to try the United States for unless it was involved in some kind of obvious crimes against humanity. If there's no trial, then there's no opportunity for the countries to team up. Also, that there are enough countries who hate America enough to frame it and then have a 2/3 majority. Such a coalition would not have any NEED to actually do any of that - they would be able to engage us in more traditional forms of warfare. A world in so much turmoil that the Court can be successfully hijacked like that is a world where the existence of the court is irrelevant, so if we ever get to my opponent's hypothetical situation, the court would no longer be relevant. At the end of the day, if we ever become so unpopular and weak that so countries would benefit from stripping our sovereignty, they won't need a court to do it. In any case, one must ask oneself the following question: Why do any OTHER countries submit to an international court if it's such a disadvantageous position to be in? I somehow doubt that any court worth debating about would consist entirely of morons. NOTE: My opponent asked me to state a value or weighting factor? I have no clue what that means, and have said so in the comments section. Since I don't want to hold this debate up, I suggest that my opponent explains what he means in that same comments section, after which I will respond, and he will be able to use that in his response to my argument.