Talk:International Criminal Court/Archive 1

message: According to the USA for the ICC website:
*The ICC has been created in part because the ad-hoc tribunals, like those for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, are extremely expensive and have experienced numerous logistical problems. It takes enormous amounts of time and money to establish ad-hoc tribunals, and the delay in their creation means that evidence gets destroyed and those responsible remain at large. 
*Moreover, the creation of a permanent court will have a deterrent effect on future war criminals.
This article is rather americocentric. The fact is most of the world has no problem whatsoever with the ICC, think it is a damned good idea, and are disgusted with America's (or rather the Bush administration's) attitudes, which they see as cynical and ignorant isolationism. And America's "justification" for its stance is roundly laughed at as clutching at straws. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:41 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)
:You're right, and the article should bring out this point more clearly. Nearly every democracy in the world but the U.S. and Israel is in favor of it. So, either:
*the U.S. and Israel are utter hypocrites, or
*the U.S. and Israel are afraid of something
I expect you'll make the case for utter hypocrisy, and I trust you'll do so neutrally, by attributing views to their advocates. But I'd really like to know what the US is so afraid of -- when everyone else is saying, "C'mon in, the water's fine!" --Uncle Ed
:"what the US is so afraid of" - I don't know if there is a name for this, but one element of standard US doctrine is that the US will not create or join anything which could be seen as creating a supranational government higher than the US, nor creating a body of enforcable law superior to US law.  Because the ICC could be seen as doing this, it doesn't fit doctrine. -º¡º
:My guess would be that the reason for being afraid of it is simple: that Bush and company are afraid not of the trumped-up, politically motivated charges that ICC critics claim will emerge, but of legitimate prosecution of actual war crimes (see Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, and forget the minor stuff that the US media tends to focus on; dozens of prisoners have been murdered by US troops). Even if, as is extremely likely, no one could prove any legal responsibility on the part of Bush, Rumsfeld, or other civilian officials, having war crimes by Americans brought so far out into the open would be a political disaster for the Administration.And as for Israel, is the ICC's jurisdiction retroactive to crimes committed before the Court was established? If so, then Ariel Sharon has a very personal reason to oppose it: he himself could be tried for his part in the Sabra and Shatila Massacre. 68.47.175.214 28 June 2005 08:26 (UTC)
::Okay, it's not retroactive, so Sharon doesn't have to worry about that. But US and Israeli officials sure as hell have plenty of ongoing actions that they wouldn't want to be held accountable for. 68.47.175.214 28 June 2005 09:38 (UTC)
"Nearly every democracy in the world but the U.S. and Israel is in favor of it."
: Just a rough estimate, but the following could be considered democracies that have NOT accepted the ICC: Bahamas, Cape Verde, Chile, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, India, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Kiribati, Lithuania, Micronesia, Monaco, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, São Tomé & Príncipe, Solomon Islands, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, Taiwan, Thailand, Tuvalu, and the United States. -º¡º
"The fact is most of the world has no problem whatsoever with the ICC..."
: Just a rough count, I might miss one or two.  89 countries have signed and accepted the treaty, 38 countries have signed but not accepted the treaty, 2 countries have unsigned the treaty, and 52 countries have not signed the treaty. -º¡º
Basically, both the US and Israel have carried out military acts that much of the rest of the world sees as gross abuses of human rights; eg, Israel's behaviour on the West Bank, etc, the US action in Cambodia, its illegal support for the Contras, its role in bringing Pinochet to power and keeping him there, its support for Saddam Hussein for years (Donald Rumsfeld, the great Iraq 'liberator' even met Saddam on behalf of the US once). Both the US and Israel want to freedom to do what they believe they are entitled to do, even though worldwide their behaviour as grossly unacceptable, most especially the role of the CIA in destabilishing some regimes and proping up others. Sharon in Israel certainly has serious questions to answer from his behaviour in the 1980s. Put simply, they are afraid that some of their own past behaviour might be investigated. As Rumsfeld once said, "America answers to no-one", to which many international states reply "well it darn well should!" 
As to the above figures, it is revealing who is on the list. Some like Chile, the Phillippines and El Salvador have plenty in their past that they would not want the ICC to investigate.  India has questions to answer over its military behaviour towards minorities. When Bush decided to block the treaty, he lobbied hard to get other countries to back away too. (One envoy toured Europe where in most capitals he was told to f*** off!) Re the small states many of whom have a history of doing what the US wanted (arguing that the last thing it could afford to do was piss off America. Watching the rampant anti-french hysteria in the US lately when a large nation like France did what it was perfectly entitled to do and what America had a long history of doing itself, threatening to use their veto in the Security Council, it is no wonder small islands with open countries and strong economic links to the US would avoid doing anything that America didn't want them to do!). So that puts the US in with countries with economic dependency on the US, counties with poor human rights records, states with former extreme right wing dictators - who had been supported by the US - oh, and Monaco. 
Whereas the vast vast majority of major democratic states enthusiastically signed the treaty. So the pro-treaty side has the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, South Africa, Canada, etc etc etc. The anti-treaty side has the Philippines, São Tomé & Príncipe, Solomon Islands, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, Taiwan, Thailand, Tuvalu, and George Bush's United States. If the US changed its stance tomorrow, most of the states who currently are not signed up with stampede to sign up also. That's the way international politics works. STÓD/ÉÍRE 23:29 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)
:Please forgive me as I acclimate to the anti-American distortion of this forum.  You wrote that France "enthusiastically signed the treaty"?  Are you joking? France only ratified after years of opposition and after taking asserting (without legal justification) that French citizens are immune from prosecution under Article 124.  By your reasoning, France must then also be guilty of war crimes because it, like the US, has bartered for the exemption of its own citizens?  Is there that big of a difference between signing the treaty and then asserting "Certain parts don't apply to us" and not signing the treaty?
::Sorry, I did not find any reference that "France enthusiastically signed the treaty" in the original posting. The only thing he says is that the "vast vast majority of major democratic states enthusiastically signed the treaty", but he did not claim that France is one of these--at least IMHO. -- mkrohn 08:36 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)
To Stod (jtd): I thought the treaty establishing the ICC forbade it to deal in any way with events that took place before 2002 or 2003. Is this correct, or not? 
This is a crucial question, because if there's a grandfather clause that lets prosecutors go back in time as far as they like, then I can see why the US and Israel would be unwilling to sign. The first two cases would be against Kissinger for the Cambodia thing and the Israeli P.M. for the massacre.
If, however, there's a clause that PREVENTS prosecutors from going back into time, it's another story. I'd like the article to clarify just exactly how far back in time the ICC will claim jurisdiction. --Uncle Ed 13:48 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)
:The ICC's jurisdiction is not retroactive.  Otherwise France would not have signed it for fear they would be tried for the massacres of tens of thousands of Algerian citizens from the 1940s through the 1960s.  Maybe they also would have been forced to extradite the former Haitian dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, whom they've been harboring since he fled from Haiti in 1986.  Nor would the UK have ratified, for fear that Winston Churchill would be labeled a war criminal for the deliberate bombing of civilians in World War II (or for deliberately allowing Coventry to be bombed by the Germans, etc. etc. etc.). Chadloder 16:51 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)
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Don't do the crime if you can't do the time... // Liftarn
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This sentence is unwieldy, confusing, and probably untrue:
:The ICC is the first such court to exist as a treaty arrangement between member states, and not as a creation of the UN.
Who says so? And why? Sounds like pro-ICC propaganda to me. What about all the other tribunals set up in the 20th century to punish war criminals (created by the victors, of course)? And why are they saying its "not a creation of the UN" while simultaneously according power to the Security Council to bring or block charges?
Please let's separate the advocacy from the facts. --Uncle Ed 15:56, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: US and ICC