The United States ought to submit to an international court designed to prosecute crimes against hum

Because joining an international court designed to prosecute crimes against humanity is detrimental to the United States, I negate. The presumption of this debate does negative because one ought always presume in favor of sovereignty because sovereignty is the basis of human rights insofar as soveregnty f the nation is but sovereignty of the self extended to a group of people. Moreover, presuming against the sovereignty of a nation by proxy presumes against the sovereignty of its individual members. Thus, since robbing persons of their sovereignty itself constitutes a crime against humanity, if a clear winner does not emerge you negate. My value is also Justice. O1: A prerequisite to any system of justice is an agent capable of enforcing the system's ideological tenets in the form of a state enforcing law. So if there is no actor to enforce its statutes, then justice cannot be served. Therefore: The criterion is the protection of democratic sovereignty. This is true for 2 reasons: 1. The US needs national sovereignty to submit to the ICC. Sovereignty entails a consent based relationship with the citizenry. Jean L. Cohen clarifies democratic sovereignty as a distinctive political relationship between a citizenry and its government within a defined territory. Internal sovereignty is based upon the consent of the governed; government is to serve the interests of the citizenry and public purposes generaly. Since sovereignty is relational, it cannot be exercised in a way contrary to the people. Thus if an act does not protect sovereignty, it does not protect the people. 2. Sovereignty uniquely enables humanitarian interaction between states: Frederick Petersen explains that respect for state sovereignty assured state leaders that efforts could be shifted from an emphasis on interstate protection to intrastate nation building. This is because countries no longer had to worry about random interventions, and could expect peace with their neighboring countries. Inversely, not protecting sovereignty disables its ability to encourage humanitarian interaction. Thus, since the presence of such interaction is key to proactively preventing crimes against humanity and the absence of such interaction removes a barricade to the occurrence of crimes against humanity, sovereignty needs to be protected to enable humanitarian interaction. My sole contention is that the ICC (or any international court) destroys democratic sovereignty. SubA: Submitting to the ICC adds an additional bureaucracy to the legal system which sits above the law of the nation and thus overrides the ability of the nation to democratically adjudicate justice. Insofar as the states parties govern the court through voting in the Assembly of States Parties, the ICC involves a form of governance by majority rule. The offer to non-party states cannot be: either you join us in this new, majority rule form of decision making, or we will simply govern you without your consent or representation. A system based on the consent of the governed requires that consent be meaningful, meaning that it be optional, that there be a viable alternative to not consenting. SubB: The ICC possesses unparalleled power for an international body to violate national sovereignty. The Courts ability to pursue individuals within a state's territorial boundaries and assert legal jurisdiction over internal crimes is a violation of state sovereignty. In short, the ICC has the ability to override the primary purpose of state sovereignty, non-intervention. Now to my opponents case: Definitions: I accept all his definitions. In fact, his definition of submit can be used for my case. We are giving up our own authority over ourselves to a higher court with such broad powers that we have no idea what they will do to us. We are at their mercy. This is a turn to my case. Framework: V: Justice; Fine by me. C: Protecting Human Rights. Ok, thats great. I would love to protect human rights as well. But we can't protect human rights if we are giving up our own ability to have humanitarian interaction! Look to my Petersen card. If we don't have sovereignty, we will not be able to have any humanitarian interaction. Sovereignty is a necessary factor to protecting human rights. Therefore, I win under his framework as well. C1: CAH are a significant threat to justice. SubA: This point only shows that there are a lot of CAH throughout the world. Fine by me. But this doesn't help his case, since he hasn't shown any impacts on how the ICC will be able to stop CAH. SubB: Justice is essential for deterring CAH. Thats great. But how do you serve justice when you don't have any power? A prerequisite of justice is an actor capable of enforcing the laws. The ICC can't do it; their job is just to prosecute those guilty. They just say to those committing CAH: Ok, you're guilty. Now what? Without any actors capable to enforcing those decisions, the ICC is useless. Remember, the ICC is just a court. Therefore, this SubB can be used as a turn to my case. We need to keep our sovereignty to be an enforcer of justice, and deter CAH. A point in my favor. SubC: All this says is that the US public supports the ICC more than the government does. This has not proven anything. This doesn't show why its in the best interests of the citizens to join, it only shows that the citizens like the idea of their top officials being able to tried for their crimes. Thats great! We already have a legal system in place to deal with those actions. So all this point does is show that the US doesn't need to join. It doesn't have a single impact back to the ICC, and in fact is also turned for my case. C2: Not submitting undermines US values: My opponents only warrant for this is that the ICC will uphold US values, and will strengthen international laws, in favor of the US. First, the ICC is a neutral court, above any international political influences. The US would not be able to change the court to their beliefs. Second, if we wanted to uphold our values, we don't have to join the ICC. There are other ways to promote our international values throughout the world. Joining the ICC and giving up our own sovereignty is not the right way. In fact, joining the ICC goes against US principles. We are directly going against the power of the people over themselves, and are instead giving all our power to a higher court whom we have no influence over. This directly does against US principles. C3: An international court is essential to the prosecution of terrorism. So this argument is saying that the ICC is designed to prosecute terrorism, and therefore we should join. However, my opponent has not answered how the ICC will prevent terrorism, which is more important that just prosecuting them. The ICC can say: "You're guilty of terrorism" all it wants, but it does not have the capability to actually stop terrorism. My opponent has not provided any impacts from his arguments. My opponents likely response to all my refutations will be that the ICC will be able to have more resources and powers, since the US is sponsoring it. However, this is incorrect. Yes, the ICC will be able to take people and land for their use, but we are not going to be sponsoring it. We are subject to its jurisdiction just as much as the next guy, and it only makes it worse since the ICC will directly violate our national sovereignty. If the ICC violates all of our sovereignty, then we will be incapable to providing any international aid, and we will also not be able to participate internationally, knowing that our sovereignty is not there anymore. Therefore, I urge a negative ballot. Thank you.