US to Abandon Treaty Creating International Criminal Court

Thank God!!

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020506/1/2p0h6.html

US to abandon treaty on International Criminal Court



The United States is disassociating itself from a treaty that created the International Criminal Court because the tribunal is not accountable to any authority and could second-guess US courts, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced.

He said the decision to "unsign" the treaty would be formally announced as early as Monday.

"Within the next day or so, the United States will notify the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, that we will not ratify it, no intention of ratifying the international criminal court treaty," Powell said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" television program.

"Since we have no intention of ratifying it, it is appropriate for us, because we have such serious problems with the ICC, to notify the depository, secretary general, that we do not intend to ratify it, and therefore we are no longer bound in any way to its purpose and objective," he added.

The court is being created under a 1998 Rome agreement signed by countries eager to set up an international body to prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Many legal experts argue an international criminal court is the missing link in the international legal system because the existing International Court of Justice at The Hague handles only litigation between states, not individuals.

Its absence has allowed many crimes against humanity like the killing of an estimated two million people in Cambodia in the 1970s to go unpunished, these experts say.

Former US president Bill Clinton signed the accord on behalf of the United States on December 31, 2000, but, due to overwhelming opposition in Congress, he never submitted it for ratification.

Members of the US Congress, where support for the treaty remains very low on both sides of the aisle, have insisted the court could be used by critics of the United States against American servicemen participating in military operations overseas.

To date, 66 nations have now ratified the international statute, six more than required to trigger its entry into force.

The court will come into being July 1, and is expected to be ready to start work in The Hague early next year.

Powell said the court was beholden to no higher authority, not even the UN Security Council, and would be able "to second-guess the United States after we have tried somebody."

"We found that this was not a situation that we believed was appropriate for our men and women in the armed forces or our diplomats and political leaders," he said.

"And it is for that reason we will be notifying the depository, secretary general ... that the United States does not intend to ratify the ICC."

At the same time, Powell pointed out that the United State had supported the international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and is trying to set up a court to hear cases stemming from the conflict in Sierra Leone.

The US decision drew sharp criticism from 23 prominent human rights advocates, including Jesse Jackson and Amnesty International-USA Director Bill Shultz, who called it rash, arguing that the United States was "turning its back on decades of US leadership in prosecuting war criminals since the Nuremberg trials."

"Unsigning is an unprecedented act that has little practical effect, but is symbolically powerful because it undermines American leadership and credibility at the worst possible time," the group said in a statement.

An opinion poll conducted last month for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights showed that 54 percent of Americans believed that the US government should change its current position on the court

 

yeah...sorry...not trading due process for the hopes that we'll be liked in the world community...quite frankly, those rights aren't the government's to give away. In our country, we call those inalienable rights...we say they come from a creator or from the very nature of man...but they aren't granted to us by a government. Thus, they can not be assigned on our behalf by the US govt. I choose not to submit to the authority of a world court.

 

government of any kind, theoretically and ideally, exists only at the submission of the people who it governs. citizens have the US Constitution as a contract for which rights are to be protected...what the fed govt can not do. we have notions like due process, equal protection and search & seizure, which other goverments do not place an emphasis on. you have rights when you go before a court in the US that you're not likely to have in a world court. I'm not giving up those rights...I'm not choosing to do so. If the US enters into some treaty with other countries submitting its citizens to anything less than the Constitutional protections they are afforded as US citizens, I would argue that's blatantly unconstitutional. I would also argue they don't have the right to do so. That we, as a nation, believe that we are endowed with rights from our creator or from nature (whichever one makes you happy) presupposes that government didn't create these rights...thus, they don't have the right to contract them away in a treaty.

keep in mind...the Constitution didn't originally apply to states. States could jack with people's rights in a way the federal government couldn't. that is no longer the case, through the due process clause and its development through the courts.

dadakota --- there is no way there will be a stable one world government...and if there is, get ready to sacrifice the liberties that our fathers and grandfathers fought and died for. nations are comprised of different cultures...from those cultures come values and social mores...those values typically comprise a framework for law. you simply can not arrive at uniformity on those across cultures (look at the difference even among states!!! -- now magnify it across the globe...) It's simply unworkable...and I pray I'm not around to see it. Honestly...this is the kind of thing I'd go to war to prevent.

 

Grizzled -- NAFTA is merely a treaty...incentive for trade between nations...do business in the US, though, and you subject yourself to US law. Beside that...what global problems do you see that a global government could remedy?? Seems to me that democracy works at its very best on a local level where it is more responsive to the needs of the community. Guys like Milosevic are still knocked out of power without subjugating the rest of the world to the dominion of some political body run by people who don't share the same values you and your countrymen share.

Jeff - holding terrorists...do you mean US citizens, or not? US constitutional protection doesn't generally extend to those who aren't citizens of the US. and actually, military tribunals have been ruled not to violate due process..there are different rules for those who are at war..courts have pretty consistent about that. Even US servicemen can be convicted by a military tribunal....it happens all the time in war.

Otto -- the media already saturates the hell out of the world...and i don't see a one world culture emerging. there is still a great deal of contempt for even bordering neighbors around the world. the cultures of the East and the cultures of the West are so vastly different they might as well be living three centuries apart. some cultures value the individual...some cultures value the community...some cultures value freedom of religion...other cultures value a theocracy. try selling a one-world government to the Muslim theocracies...how will you impose that?? by force?? these are just a few problems...i also see a one-world government as virtually unmanageable. as much as we'd like to say, "we're all alike", even doing the way different nations do business is vastly different. Hell, starting a company in Laredo and starting a company in Mexico City is like night and day! Good luck coming up with a universal commercial code. I rail against these things, but I'm not asking the US to exert its will anymore than it has to protect its own interests. The US can and should bargain from a position of power in the world, simply because its in the best interests of its citizens. Again..there's no question about it...this is exactly the kind of thing I would go to war for. I would join the Rebel Alliance and team up with a cavalier hot-shot who likes wearing vests and a couple of robots to save the world from the evil plans of the Empire!

i