Immunity from UN

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Fireworks Shralp! I promise! You cant have a wedding without fireworks

I didnt mean it like they wanted their soldiers to go on a rampage, I just meant that it is easily viewed like that and that different rules apply to different nations. How come that all other nations except the US wants to put the ICC in action Shralp? Dont you think that there is a difference between the view of justice in the UK and Libya too? Not to mention the radical view between the US and the scandinavian nations. I dont know the details but I dont think it is planned that a libyan ismalistic fanatic is going to preside over US soldiers that have beaten up some thieving kid somewhere.

 

joacqin, you said:

Bad, bad joacqin.

And, yes, the WC (or ICC) would be made up of an international group, and there can be no rationale for not letting backwards countries like Syria make up the court because they have already been voted into the Human Rights Commission! That fact alone makes the UN a laughable organization. How supremely absurd. And that idiotic commission (committee?) has already wasted resource looking into the application of the U.S. death penalty instead of, oh, I don't know... how about female genital mutilation in east Africa? How about the continuing practice of government-sponsored torture in the Middle East? How about NGO's bribing men and women into sterilizing themselves (often withour the full knowledge that it is an irreversible procedure) in India? Noooooo. That vaunted protector of human rights has instead decided to investigate the U.S. Good thinking there. Really inspires confidence.

 

So Shralp you put the US on the same level as nations that condone genital mutilation, middle eastern nations that torture their prisoners? Isnt the US a democracy? A country on which we can have a bit higher demands than tribal societies in eastern Africa? The deathpenalty is wrong, there are NO, none at all justification of it. All other western democracies has abolished it. Why do the US still practice it? IMO we can have higher demands on the US than on less developed nations. Dont you think so Shralp?

 

Never thought I'd live to see the day Shralp had nothing funny to say.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand the WC's jurisdiction will *only* apply to signatories, of which at present there are about 70. I don't recall Iraq being included among them. What this means is that a host of countries will be "above the law," at any rate *that* law. As usual, of course, as was the case in Nuremburg and the Milosevic trial, any truly useful WC will be created on an ad hoc basis, backed by the military powers that be. I can't see even the French letting Hussein off the hook just because the WC has no jurisdiction over him.

And you've only got to put the question to a handful of Okinawans if you want to know if American soldiers rape and kill. They do. And then they're severely punished for it by, as Shralp noted, military justice.

 

Obviously, some of you guys are anti-america in this thread... Of that there is no doubt, and are putting irrational situations in circulation. (such as that our military would let our own war crimes criminals go without a trial or justice at all.)

Further more, I seriously doubt that the WC would be working correctly next year if it were to be put into comission right this moment. (A guy called Sadam Husein(spelling?) comes to mind) If there were to be treaties between two (or more) governments, do you think that those governments would seriously allow for thier reps. to acuse the other of a crime for fear of retribution? (espesially if the treaty were to a world power or a known terrorist funding nation) No, of course not.

If you ask me, human nature would take control of nearly every trial brought to the court.(the instinct to protect your own hide)

There are simply to many weak points in this court, IMHO.

 

Come on BTA, it's not really a new story but I will cheerfully tell it again: All the privileges for criminals - like fair trial, food and jail instead of death penalty are there just in case that someone was accidentally innocent. So simple. And I heared that isn't at all so rare - telling tales about quality of law enforcement and fairness of a jury trial (when a poor black convict can't aford a proper attorney).

However, that is not the point of this thread. The point is the relationship US-international law, and the Hague the tribunal and war crimes.

I think some of the posters are missing the point.
[*]First of all, there is a law every country has to obey to: international law. Per se international law is of superior rank than national law - even though Shralp might not like to hear so. Some people in germany also don't like european law to be of higher rank than german constitutional law - however, that does not change the fact it is. And this rule also applies for an international court. But as usual with international law, the US are only in the club when they sign the treaty. As long as they don't they are fine on their own.

[*]Second, I think the point is also not that the world has to fear US soldiers roam the world to rape and exercise war crimes in general. They don't. As some of the posters above said, the major point would be tht some of the accidents like missing the target or maybe the use of particular weapons (like maybe cluster munitions) would be the subject of a trial at the international court. The fear that good glorious and innocent US boys would be judged by sinister judges from "rogue states" is, in a word, moronic. At the court will rather be judges from "neutral" countries such as switzerland, sweden, canada and other troubled regions known for their deep hatred for the western world in general and the US especially

IMO the major problem for the US is the way they do their politics. The US regularly use military force as a tool of their external politics. To deal with some problems the US are focussed on expeditionary warefare, which (unfortunately) sometimes seems to be the only way to deal with countries persistently ignoring international law. It may also be needed to enforce prosecution of dangerous folk in "failed states" without a functioning government at all - like afganistan or maybe somalia.

The US need public support to undertake such operations. I think the major concern of the US is not so much the fear to be accused of war crimes by some retard country. Accuses of US soldiers eating babies would be easily dealt with. Looking back to the vietnam war it maybe becomes clearer what the US troble with the court is about. Though military defeated the north vietnamese made it a political victory - only possible after the loss of public support in the US. This reliance on public support is the reason of the general attempt to achieve media control in the recent wars.

So I think what the US really fear is the possibility that beeing accused at the international warcrimes tribunal would result in them loosing a political-military option, the use of force in general. Maybe coupled with a fear that a less resolute (maybe smarter) and liberal US president might be afraid of the consequences of beeing accused at that court - and maybe favouring not-acting to a risky active policy.
The risk of the court for the US is not so much the actual practice of use of military force by US forces. The US fear to loose the public support for their way of crisis management as a result of a judgement or even just a trial at the Hague tribunal.

I personally think the US are bound to international law - as any other country is. Yes, of course there are rogues who don't do that but that has never been a reason not to obey to the law (I like to imagine a thief in trial claiming for his defence that plenty of other people steal too - uncaught! ). The major problem of the US ignoring international law is that: How can they honestly claim that Iraq violates international law (which is a fact) while (which is another fact) ignoring the same principles of international law- such as the monopoly of force of the UN?
Given US soldiers would commit a war-crime (shit happens) they are better accused at an international court than at an internal US court. Especially since then no one would have a reason to accuse the US to hush up anything.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited July 06, 2002).]

 

that is a very interesting post, and a good premise that International Law supercedes other laws. However, I don't believe that is the case concerning the US Constitution. The preseident is not allowed to make treaties that supercede the constitution, and that would include any court that did not permit a US citizen to make full use of his constitutionally guaranteed rights(though I suspect such rights are different for military personnel, but I don't have the details).

Need an example? At the war crimes tribunal in the Hague, the European judges attempted to subpeona a US journalist regarding his conversations with Milosovic, forcing him to incriminate the despot. While the motives are good, this is a violation of the first amendment's freedom for the press, who are not required to disclose sources in the US. The reporter refused to appear, and the US government won't make him do it either.

 

The point about a president signing treaties and the senate not agreeing with it is so: irrelevant for international law. When a president has obliged to do something by signing a treaty, it is a countries problem when it is unable to ratify it. However, it is mildened for the US since they are not affected by a treaty as long as it's not ratified. But the US diplomats will have a hard time to pick up the pieces of broken porcellaine.
That was the point with the Kyoto-protocol: You make a bad, unreliable partner out of your country when you ignore obligations made by the last government - for what ever reasons, in this particular case iirc the american way of life with the inherent right to waste nature for jobs. Mind, trees don't vote

But this was most certainly

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited July 06, 2002).]

 

I believe that the rules for which soldiers may be called up in front of the ICC are:

- Any country may submit that a soldier from a signatory country should be called up

- A signatory country may submit that any soldier fighting on that country's territory should be called up.

So it would therefore be possible, if the ICC was established, for a US soldier to be indicted without the US having signed the treaty to establish the court.

 

Wow, Ragusa. I think this is a new record for you. Every single point in your last two posts was wrong.

Why do you say that? Who says that international law has any force whatsoever? And even if you can magically whip up some rationale for it, who is to say that the U.N. is the proper authority for international law? You Europeans might like to be sheep that bow to every international organization that comes along, but we don't.

Really? Please provide some citations for your wild claims about the make-up of the ICC. The fact remains that the representatives on the ICC would be voted on by the ambassadors to the U.N. The same people, as I remind you again and again, who put Syria on the Human Rights Commission.

Oh, and your point about Iraq is ridiculous. We complain about them because they signed a treaty agreeing to allow U.N. weapons inspectors in. They have since violated that treaty. The U.S. has never signed a treaty agreeing to let the U.N. over-rule our national law. Nor will we, despite the best efforts of Euro-whiners who want some forum to control the U.S. under the guise of "holding American accountable."

Absolutely not. You might live in a monarchy in which a single individual has the power to create an obligation for the entire nation on a whim (FYI, you do not), but the U.S. not such a nation. We do not give the President authority to commit us to international treaties without the consent of Congress.

Heh. Again, we were never obliged to the Kyoto treaty. Actually, neither were you. Nor were tons of other states who refused to sign off on it. One person signed it: Bill Clinton. No Senator ever voted for it.

 

ok, i know that usa have done MANY really stupid things, but this could be the worst (almost), imunity for the soldiers, are ye they totaly fucked up? I would never alow it.

 

Are ye totally clueless? Apparently. Read about it in the news, ignore the rhetoric hear.
The USA is NOT demanding immunity for war crimes. The USA is reserving the right to try our own soldiers for war crimes.

 

Jack Funk, as usual the news reporting is very different in different parts of the world. All we hear here in Sweden is about the US refusing to sign a treaty that everyone else signs, media gives the impression that the US wants to be above a law that they themselves support for others.
Apparantly the news in the US are very different, I would think that the truth is somewhere in between.

 

Though America is not obliged to wear this particular leash -- and there are good reasons why we should not -- I wonder if the one and only reason to do so does not trump all.

Is it really in our national interest to be seen as holding ourselves apart from the community of nations? We are large, we are strong, ripples from Wall Street are felt in the furthest corners of the world, and if we do not hold the moral high ground, there are few with the right to cast stones. No one can make us do anything. But by participating, could we not help to form a world consensus on acceptable conduct during war, and larger issues of human rights, much more effectively than our current method of diplomacy by fiat? Real dialogue can only occur where participants agree to be bound by the same rules. By agreeing to be part of the ICC, we would be in a much better position to ask for changes in other nations couched in the terms to which we have all agreed -- like treatment of political prisoners, like female genital mutilation. It seems like a small thing to do for world citizenship -- when one considers that neither the U.S. nor anyone else has held itself bound by a treaty that turned out to be unfairly applied.

 

Your post was great, I think that you have struck the head on the spike Methylviolet. The US are the boss, they should set good examples.

 

Thanks, joacquin -- apparently I was so unanswerably brilliant that I get the last word.

Infidels fall before my mighty rhetoric.

 

As for the ICC I can only fully and whole-heartedly agree with Methylviolet.

Some points seemed to need some further explanation: The point is that some people, like Shralp, don't understand that international law is not there to boss-around the USA - the mentioning of higher rank of international law may trouble up your belly but there is no reason for foam at the mouth or fear of foreign domination.

A little example:
The fictive banana republic Moronia signs a treaty with the USA, with the USA agreeing to give a credit of $ 50.000.000 to Moronia. After the treaty is signed and the USA have sent over the money, the moronian parliament decides that it doesn't like the treaty and doesn't ratify it. More, the mornonians make a national law that the money does not only not have to be paid back, more, it allows to confiscate american property in Moronia ...

Or how about a human rights treaty between Moronia and the USA? After the treaty declaring Moronia fully agrees that they respect human rights and grant them to every Moronian they make a law saying that a moronian in the sense of the treaty earns more than $ 500.000 a year.

Where do you end up with a higher or just equal rank of national law? It just doesn't work. There wouldn't really be a point in making treaties if international law would step back before national law.

When you accept the thought of a higher rank of international law you can perhaps understand how an international court works.

It gives an alternative other than war when negotiations fail. Given there is a border conflict between Moronia and the USA. There are two choices for both countries:
[*]war with the effect that the stronger country gets what it wants, maybe more or
[*]both parties agree to go to the UN international court ( which is not the ICC btw, it's one of the proven institutions of the UN no one in the USA have ever seems to have heared of) to get the dispute settled. This has prevented a couple of wars because of border conflucts in the last 50 years. Because of another rule (as I'll point out later) both parties have to agree the court is responsible.

One of the fundamental general principles of international law is the equality of nations: That means that the USA and Switzerland, and Iraq and Lybia meet each other on the same level. Or are the USA *more equal* ?

And this shows what international law is about: Cooperation and not domination. It's there to avoid war and the rule of stronger countries over smaller, less potent countries. When the USA see a problem with other countries restricting their overall possibilities by treaties they overlooking that the other countries meet the same restrictions.

These restrictions are for example another basic principle of international law that permits agression. When Iraq invaded Kuwait it violated that rule, just as NATO (including germany) and the US violated that rule when bombing Serbia during operation Allied Force - since that happened without mandate of the UN it was an agression (agression = no self-defence, no prevention of an attack, and there is no international rule that allows to bomb other countries because they slaughter their minorities. Unsatisfying, but that's internal stuff, irrelevant to international law - until the UN security council decides different).
Shralp, that was what I meant with USA and Iraq violating the same prinicples of international law like Iraq.

And if anyone has wondered why it isn't so easy to throw over countries with inhuman/ criminal governments like Iraq or North Korea, the reason is that you just don't throw over foreign governments - even if you dislike them with good reasons. Eventually they are equals. And that's why both parties have to agree to the jurisdiction of the court - they are equals.
Maybe that's why the US dislike the UN: The other 5 permanent members have the same de-facto veto right than the US. A pity that other countries have national interests too.

And wonder why the US hesitate or are even unwilling to sign the ICC charta Shralp?

Would the US national law be of higher rank they wouldn't need to worry about anything, right? Or should there really be an obligation when you sign an international treaty and ratify it?

Now back to the ICC and to my country Moronia:
The moronians don't agree to the ICC statute claiming that their national courts and laws are more that sufficient to deal with warcrimes commited by their military. And then the moronian parliament makes a law that gives an amnesty for slaughtering dissidents (doesn't that smell a little chilean?).
And when international protest comes up the moronians just refer to their national law and that everything has been strictly legal.

Not that the USA are like Moronia, however IMO the jurisdiction for such crimes is much better placed in the hands of the ICC.

To exaggerate it: International law is there to boss around everyone - consensually - for the sake of peace, and in case of the ICC, for the sake of human rights.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited July 09, 2002).]

 

The answer to your rhetorical power ( ) is that the important goal of setting a good example is insufficient for the amount of national sovereignty we would give up, Violet.

Now back to Ragusa:

LOL. Riiiight. Then why do you care so much about the US signing on? Isn't it more important to get habitual defenders?

Again you have difficulty understanding the division of power in a government. We no send money before treaty legal. Treaty no legal until ratified. If treaty ratified and no honored, USA have other options than UN kangaroo court. Bork bork bork.

Treaties cover things that national law does not. The ICC wants to take over that and a whole lot more. In the founding documents they even go so far as to insert "forced pregnancy" as a war crime. This doesn't refer to rape. This refers to refusing to provide abortion. Does this strike you as an appropriate use of your noble ICC?

I'm glad you understand that the UN organizations are not the same as the ICC. And since it seems to do its job fairly well in the case of border disputes, let's just keep it operating and drop the silly ICC idea.

That's very idealistic of you. If, in fact, the UN helped bring people together in some sort of agreement -- as it sometimes does -- then great. But the reality of the situation is that you invariably get a few nations -- often including the US -- trying to impose their will on the others. The UN conference on women was a typical example, as the western countries tried to force a redefinition of gender as male, female, male living as female, female living as male, and transgendered.

What rule? The "no fighting unless the UN says it's ok" rule? That's silly. We can't wait for the UN to say everything is ok, because the reality of the situation is that a LOT of the UN member nations will vote against any act of aggression. And it only takes one of the permanent members of the security council to use its veto priveleges.

Uh, duh. According to our legal system, once ratified a treaty has the same legal force as our Constitution.

And as for your example of Moronians killing their own citizens: the solution is for NATO, a group like it, or any single country or combination of countries to take action. The solution is not to wait for a beauracracy to get off its butt and pass a nice little resolution saying that suddenly now it's ok to defend the innocents.

You would have had NATO sit on its hands while people were being slaughtered -- all in the name of your precious international law. Screw that. That's not just logically wrong; it's immoral.

 

Nontheless your course of actionism is illegal. Without the conditions I named in my post it remains an agression to bomb other countries without UN mandate. That's a fact and the sad truth. You may like it or not.

As for the ICC, there is no doubt about the fact the US are about the most powerful country today ... without them signing the ICC treaty this new court will have an inherent weakness. That's what doomed the post WW-I League of Nations. Btw, an idea of another president whose call asn't understood in the US, Woodrow Wilson.

Besides, the example about the credit for Moronia was more about the impossibility to override an international treaty with a national law. The procedures of the US giving money are kinda irrelevant for the example, but alas, I should have guessed that The next time the treaty is ratified, the money is sent over already and the the Moronians make their funny law, oh what a difference Bork, bork ?!