U.S. CUTS MILITARY AID TO COUNTRIES IN DISPUTE REGARDING INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT.
The US on July 1 declared 35 countries ineligible for military aid because they have joined the International Criminal Court (ICC) and have not exempted US citizens from possible prosecution. The US action angered many allies.
Countries in the Americas affected by the cutoff include Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
The court is the culmination of a campaign that began with the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials for German and Japanese war criminals after World War II. The ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed after July 1, 2002, involving any nations that have signed the treaty, but it will step in only when the states are unwilling or unable to dispense justice.
Under the Rome Statute, intervention by the ICC must be requested by party states or by the ICC prosecutor. In addition, the UN Security Council can ask the ICC to handle a case from a nonsignatory state. The ICC is made up of 18 judges of different nationalities.
Former President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in December 2000, just a few weeks before George W. Bush became president. In May 2002, the Bush administration "unsigned" the document and withdrew from all negotiations to set up the ICC (see NotiSur, 2002-09-13).
It also threatened to veto extensions of UN peacekeeping operations unless the Security Council exempted citizens of non-ICC states parties to the Rome Statute--which includes US personnel--participating in UN peacekeeping missions or UN authorized operations from the ICC's jurisdiction for one year. That was extended under US pressure for a second year in June, although France, Germany, and Syria abstained.
Before the UN vote, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) called on Security Council nations not to support the request.
Richard Dicker, head of international justice programs at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said granting another exemption would create a two-tier system of international law--one for US citizens and another for the less-privileged citizens of the rest of the world.
Human rights groups and European governments, including Britain, said US fears were greatly exaggerated. "The US experts know that there is practically no justification for the Security Council exemptions and the likelihood that a US peacekeeping soldier would come under the jurisdiction of the court is almost zero," said William Pace, convener of the Coalition of the ICC, which includes 2,000 NGOs worldwide.
Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr., US assistant secretary of state for political military affairs, said the administration had no intention of undermining the court, but wanted to preserve its right to remain outside its purview, especially with attempts to charge US officials with war crimes. He said several US officials were indicted for war crimes in Belgium this year for their roles in the 1991 gulf war, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State...
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