Posted on 06/30/2002 11:45:19 AM PDT by WakeUpChristian
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council neared a double-edged deadline on Sunday over a U.S. fight to keep its peacekeepers out of the reach of a new global war crimes court.
Washington has threatened to kill off the U.N. Mission in Bosnia if the council fails to grant immunity for its soldiers and officials working in Bosnia ahead of a Sunday midnight (0400 GMT Monday) deadline for the mission's mandate to be extended.
Midnight also marks the hour the new International Criminal Court comes into force, empowered to prosecute heinous wrongdoing such as gross human rights abuses, genocide and war crimes.
No crimes committed prior to Monday can be pursued under the terms of the treaty that created the court, which will be based in The Hague, Netherlands, and will not actually have a prosecutor or judges until early next year. The United States has renounced the court as a threat to its sovereignty, but Bosnia has ratified it.
The U.N. Bosnia mission was launched in 1995 to train a professional multiethnic police force after a three-year war that gave rise to the term "ethnic cleansing."
The United States has 46 police officers in the mission.
But rather than simply pull them out of the country to protect them from the new court's grasp, Washington has threatened to veto the resolution that would keep the mission alive unless the U.N. satisfied U.S. demands for immunity.
That move would shut down the mission.
NATO-LED FORCE AT RISK?
Complicating the situation, Hans Corell, the top U.N. legal adviser suggested for the first time on Friday that a U.S. move to end the U.N. mission could also close down the Balkan state's far more strategically important NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force.
U.S. diplomats said that view needed further study. The United States has 2,500 troops in the NATO-led force.
The Security Council was divided 14-1 against the U.S. position after spending Friday in a failed search for common ground.
The council was due to resume its deliberations at 4 p.m. on Sunday, just eight hours before the expiration of the Bosnia mission's mandate.
Envoys said they could not recall the last time a Security Council fight pitted Washington against its longtime allies Britain and France. All three have permanent council seats, along with Russia and China.
U.S. officials said they hoped council members' governments would realize the seriousness of the U.S. concerns and give in.
But most council members are either among the 73 nations that have already ratified the new court or soon plan to. They say that binds them to do nothing to undermine the tribunal.
"We are being asked to choose between peacekeeping and the court, and I don't think people are willing at this point to step back from the court," said one council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
President Bush renounced the treaty after the United States signed it while his predecessor Bill Clinton was in the White House.
Cheered on by the Pentagon and U.S. conservatives, Bush argues the tribunal could lead to politically motivated prosecutions of its troops or officials working outside U.S. borders.
The U.S. Congress is even weighing legislation authorizing U.S. forces to invade The Hague, where the court will be based, in the event prosecutors grab a U.S. national.
June 30, 2002 06:36 AM ET
By Paul Gallagher
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The world's first permanent war crimes court starts work on Monday but faces opposition from Russia, China and the United States, which wants immunity for its overseas peacekeeping troops and other U.S. officials.
The Dutch-based International Criminal Court (ICC) will have authority over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as of July 1, 2002.
Human rights groups have hailed the court's creation as the biggest milestone for international justice since top Nazis were tried by an international military tribunal in Nuremberg after World War Two.
But the United States wants to keep its peacekeepers out of reach of the ICC and has threatened to stop the U.N. mission in Bosnia if it did not get its way.
The 15-nation U.N. Security Council faces a midnight Sunday (0400 GMT on Monday) deadline to renew the Bosnia mission, set up in 1995 to train a multi-ethnic police force after Bosnia's three-year war that gave rise to the term "ethnic cleansing."
Washington has threatened to veto the resolution unless its peacekeepers and U.S. officials are provided with immunity from the ICC.
Critics say Washington is trying to cripple the tribunal before it starts, saying its campaign is against the court itself, which has been ratified by 69 countries.
The United States says the court would infringe on national sovereignty and could lead to politically motivated prosecutions of its officials or soldiers working outside U.S. borders.
COURT STARTS WORK
The row will not remove the symbolism of Monday's opening.
"I am delighted to see the progress that is being made to carry out the principles we articulated in Nuremberg so long ago," Benjamin Ferencz, a Nuremberg prosecutor, said on a visit to The Hague.
Anyone -- from a head of state to an ordinary citizen -- will be liable to ICC prosecution for human rights violations, including systematic murder, torture, rape and sexual slavery.
A handful of staff will start work at the ICC to pave the way for 18 judges and a chief prosecutor in early 2003.
The ICC is not expected to start investigating cases before the end of next year. Judges and a prosecutor are expected to be chosen next January by those countries backing the court.
The ICC, set up under a 1998 Rome Treaty, will not probe crimes committed before its inception and will not supersede national courts, interceding only when those courts are unable to investigate or prosecute serious crimes.
Cases can be referred by states that have ratified the Rome Treaty, the U.N. Security Council or the tribunal's prosecutor after approval from three judges.
The Security Council also has the power to suspend an ICC investigation or prosecution if it believes it could obstruct its efforts to maintain international peace and security.
The U.S., Russia and China are three of the five permanent members of the 15-seat Security Council.
WAR CRIMES
The impetus to create the ICC came from the 1992-1995 Bosnia war and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which spawned two U.N. war crimes tribunals with localized scope.
But the idea for a global criminal court originated in the late 1940s.
The U.N. first recognized the need for a world court to deal with the kinds of atrocities witnessed during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany when it approved a convention to prevent and punish genocide in 1948.
The Cold War stymied progress for decades but in 1998 the U.N.-backed conference in Rome paved the way for the ICC. The Rome treaty won its crucial 60th ratification in April.
Anti-constitution people (not excluding x42) think to bypass the U.S. Constitution by the mere expedient of accepting the description of this body as a "court." But what is the relation between this "court" and our Constitution? None.If therefore this "court" presumed to seize an American abroad under U.S. auspices or (still more egregiously) any American inside the U.S., it would be an act not of constituted authority but of piracy or war. Congress should pass a resolution to that effect, rather than specifying what specific action the U.S. would take in such instance. There are after all many possible responses, including a Federal lawsuit under RICO demanding the forfeiture of the UN building in Manhattan . . .
The U.S. Congress is even weighing legislation authorizing U.S. forces to invade The Hague, where the court will be based, in the event prosecutors grab a U.S. national.
This is very good. Though better might be using the precedent of the Israeli air strike on the Iraqi nuclear plant.
They have no authority over Free men and women, since we do not recognize it as being legitimate.
Even X42 said he didn't think there was a chance in hell Congress would ratify this treaty; he just signed it to suck up to the left.
In any case, you're correct: The ICC is unconstitutional on its face. American citizens cannot be subjected to any court higher than that of the Supreme Court, period.
Good. The more the UN reaches down to meddle in and destroy the lives of individual human beings, the sooner they will rise up against the UN. We as Americans are already protected from them, so we don't have to care; if the rest of the world is oh-so-enlightened about the ICC, let them have it. We'll just sit back, watch, and laugh.
(this is assuming I have all the GMT/EST/EDT crap right!)
I don't think it's going to matter whether this particular part of the Act becomes law or not. If the UN takes an American citizen or soldier, we WILL go in and rescue them by force.
The EUnuchs made a conscious decision to disarm themselves and attempt to rule through nothing but regulations, meetings, and using money to buy their way out of any problems. That's why they now have zero relevance, and are so angry at America, which has ALL the relevance.
The U.N. moans about chain-gangs in America picking up garbage on the side of the road instead of sitting around watching color satellite TV and getting three meals a day brought to them like room service. But, the U.N. has nothing to say about Palestinian atrocities and atrocities being done to people around the world by their own governments. (The U.N. doesn't cry when Palestinians carry out the random mass-murder of Israeli civilians or the torture and slow death of those arrested for being collaborators. The U.N. didn't cry when China executed 1,800 dissidents on the same day.)
The U.N. warcrime court is designed to attack American foreign policy and absolutely nothing more.
Care to guess which will be brought to trial first? Arafat or Sharon?
Or maybe they will rush to try Idi Ammin. Don't hold your breath.
Once this court is seated, it is all over for the free world.
Exactly
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