Jesse Helms, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has presented a Bill that would impose sanctions on any non-Nato country that ratifies the court. As America's main partner in peacekeeping, Britain should think carefully about American worries. The Government claims that the Bill cannot be amended because it is based on a treaty. But that is nonsense. As Jeremy Rabkin, the distinguished academic at Cornell University has pointed out the court is a gigantic leap towards a new level of global governance.
Criminal prosecution is normally part of a state's sovereign authority.
A state can punish those it has the authority to govern. Nuremberg was not an international court but one established by the legal authority in Germany at that time. The ICC cannot enforce its jurisdiction or its warrants because it has no police or troops of its own. But can it inhibit the countries that do have troops and are prepared to use them when needed. Some Americans believe that the US will never get involved in international peacekeeping again if this court comes into being.