Posted on 05/06/2002 7:09:41 AM PDT by anniegetyourgun
WASHINGTON- The United States plans to tell the United Nations it is renouncing formal involvement in a treaty creating the first permanent war crimes tribunal, Secretary of State Colin Powell says.
The Bush administration will notify U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the United States has no intention of ratifying the treaty and now considers itself "no longer bound in any way to its purpose and objective," Powell said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
The administration planned to address the matter Monday in a speech by Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman and a news briefing by Pierre-Richard Prosper, the State Department's ambassador for war crimes issues, officials said.
The International Criminal Court gained the necessary backing to come into being when 10 nations joined 56 others last month in announcing their ratification of the treaty negotiated in Rome in 1998. Then-President Clinton signed the treaty but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification. The Bush administration has made its opposition clear.
The United States fears the impact on American citizens, arguing that safeguards against frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions of American soldiers and officials are not sufficient.
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the renunciation.
"Beyond the extremely problematic matter of casting doubt on the U.S. commitment to international justice and accountability, these steps actually call into question our country's credibility in all multilateral endeavors," he said.
The Washington Working Group on the ICC, a coalition of organizations including Amnesty International-USA that support the tribunal, also was critical. "This rash action signals to the world that America is turning its back on decades of U.S. leadership in prosecuting war criminals since the Nuremberg trials," it said.
The court, to be formed this summer without U.S. participation, will fill a gap in the international justice system first recognized by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 after the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials for World War II's German and Japanese war criminals.
Tribunals have been created for special situations - such as the 1994 Rwanda genocide and war crimes in former Yugoslavia - but no mechanism existed to hold individuals criminally responsible for serious crimes such as genocide.
"We are the leader in the world with respect to bringing people to justice," Powell said. "But ... 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."
Interesting that this article makes no mention that it was Klintoon that originally signed the d$mned thing. Previous article here in FR that points that out. Elsewhere cited
What's this?
Then-President Clinton signed the treaty but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification. The Bush administration has made its opposition clear.
And in related news, American Sentator Pus Feingold plainly exhibits his traitorous intentions for all American soldiers. His buddy, Manchurian Candidate John McCain, is expected to give a similar speech at Berkeley.
Woo-hoo!!!
(Heck, if Bush gets us out, and SCOTUS comes through on their end of CFR, I just might forgive him for signing that travesty!)
How can anyone who publicly admits to total ignorance of the Constitution get elected to the Senate?
Oh, right, he's a Democrat.
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