Extending a hand to the world court?
In a break from the past, the Obama administration has signaled its willingness to engage the International Criminal Court (ICC) by participating in a conference with members of the ICC. The US has not changed its policy on joining the court and still has major concerns over international prosecutors potentially trying US officials and the US military. The suggestion that an unaccountable prosecutor, independent from the Security Council and the rest of the UN system, remains a point of contention. From the Washington Post:
Although U.S. officials have come to support prosecutions of specific cases, such as in Darfur, they have long worried that an international criminal court might seek to constrain U.S. military action around the globe by carrying out politically motivated prosecutions of American soldiers. “There remain concerns about the possibility that the United States . . . and its service members might be subject to politically inspired prosecutions,” [Stephen J. Rapp, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes] told reporters in Nairobi.
The ICC was established in 2001 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Its chief prosecutor is pursuing war crimes cases in Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic and the Darfur region of Sudan. It has become one of the key actors on the world stage to bring justice and affect the peace process in situations of ongoing conflict. The struggle for the US is about what America’s relationship should and could be with the ICC.
What is the future path for the court and the critical benchmarks going forward? John Bellinger, former Legal Adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Leslie Vinjamuri, Assistant Professor of Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London discuss whether cooperation between the US and the ICC is possible and if the ICC it has the clout and international buy-in to extend its de-facto jurisdiction beyond Africa.
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Learn more about the ICC in Judging the International Criminal Court.