[Shadow_Group] Congress Seeks to Curb International Court

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13257-2004Nov25.html

Congress Seeks to Curb International Court 

Measure Would Threaten Overseas Aid Cuts to Push
Immunity for U.S. Troops 

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 26, 2004; Page A02 


UNITED NATIONS -- The Republican-controlled Congress
has stepped up its campaign to curtail the power of
the International Criminal Court, threatening to cut
hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid to
governments that refuse to sign immunity accords
shielding U.S. personnel from being surrendered to the
tribunal.

The move marks an escalation in U.S. efforts to ensure
that the first world criminal court can never judge
American citizens for crimes committed overseas. More
than two years ago, Congress passed the American
Servicemembers' Protection Act, which cut millions of
dollars in military assistance to many countries that
would not sign the Article 98 agreements, as they are
known, that vow not to transfer to the court U.S.
nationals accused of committing war crimes abroad.

A provision inserted into a $338 billion government
spending bill for 2005 would bar the transfer of
assistance money from the $2.52 billon economic
support fund to a government "that is a party" to the
criminal court but "has not entered into an agreement
with the United States" to bar legal proceedings
against U.S. personnel. The House and Senate are to
vote on the budget Dec. 8.

Congress's action may affect U.S. Agency for
International Development programs designed to promote
peace, combat drug trafficking, and promote democracy
and economic reforms in poor countries. For instance,
the cuts could jeopardize as much as $250 million to
support economic growth and reforms in Jordan,
$500,000 to promote democracy and fight drug
traffickers in Venezuela, and about $9 million to
support free trade and other initiatives with Mexico.

The legislation includes a national security waiver
that would allow President Bush to exempt members of
NATO and other key allies, including Australia, Egypt,
Israel, Japan, Jordan, Argentina, South Korea, New
Zealand or Taiwan. The waiver was added to the
provision, which Rep. George R. Nethercutt (R-Wash.)
introduced into a House appropriations bill in July,
after the State Department raised concern that the
cuts could undermine key programs that advance U.S.
foreign policy.

State Department lawyers are studying the language to
determine what portion of the economic support fund
could be withheld under the law. But congressional
staff members say the legislation would
disproportionately hurt small countries with limited
strategic importance to the United States.

The criminal court was established by treaty at a 1998
conference in Rome to prosecute perpetrators of the
most serious crimes, including genocide, war crimes
and crimes against humanity. The treaty has been
signed by 139 countries and ratified by 97. Prosecutor
Luis Moreno Ocampo of Argentina has begun
investigating widespread human rights violations in
Congo and Uganda.

The Clinton administration signed the treaty in
December 2000, but the Bush administration renounced
it in May 2001, citing concern that an international
prosecutor might conduct frivolous investigations and
trials against American officials, troops and foreign
nationals deployed overseas on behalf of the United
States. "This is a body based in The Hague where
unaccountable judges and prosecutors could pull our
troops, our diplomats up for trial," Bush said in his
first campaign debate with Sen. John F. Kerry.

Since the tribunal began in July 2002, the Bush
administration has been struggling to secure
guarantees from governments to sign the pacts
exempting U.S. citizens from investigation or
prosecution by the court. The congressional cuts would
not affect 96 countries that have signed the immunity
pacts.

Other governments, including Jordan, have been trying
to negotiate the terms of an agreement with the United
States that would not violate their own laws that bar
them from undermining the court. Jordan's King
Abdullah, who supports the tribunal, is expected to
discuss the issue with Bush in Washington next month.

But Washington's key European allies, including
Britain, France and Germany, have opposed the U.S.
effort on grounds that it undermines the treaty. In
June, the Europeans spearheaded a campaign to block
the United States from securing passage of a U.N.
security resolution extending immunity to U.S.
citizens in U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping operations.

The court's advocates maintain that the Bush
administration's fears of frivolous prosecution are
overstated. They say that the tribunal was created to
hold future despots in the ranks of Adolf Hitler, Pol
Pot and Idi Amin accountable for mass killings, not to
pursue U.S. officials responsible for military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. They note that the
court will take on cases only when a state is unable
or unwilling to do so.

"The continuing attempt to cut aid to countries that
do not support the International Criminal Court is
unnecessary; the U.S. doesn't have anything to worry
about," said Sally Eberhardt, a spokeswoman for the
Coalition for the International Criminal Court. "There
are enough safeguards built into the treaty, which the
United States helped draft."

Brian Thompson, a specialist for the court at Citizens
for Global Solutions in Washington, said, "They are
taking another swing at international relations that I
think are already damaged by cutting off economic
support programs that promote American ideals." 



© 2004 The Washington Post Company 







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