America and the ICC

OP-ED: A Court for a New America, By ROGER COHEN, New York Times, December 3, 2008

Good op-ed by Cohen. Obviously, well covered in Great Powers, given the importance and symbolism and what it says about the Bush-Cheney years. A much-needed realignment to follow.

(Thanks: Dan Hare)

Comments

[Jack]

In the TED talk, you argued that the Sysadmins must come under the jurisdiction of the ICC, but the Leviathan force must NOT. Cohen makes no such distinction. If we join the ICC, don't we need to exempt (at least some parts of) our military?

In that vein, Cohen points out that an attempt to prosecute British forces in Iraq was rejected by the prosecutor. Does this suggest that we might trust the ICC's discreation, and therefore bring the Leviathan force into the ICC's fold? Or is their freedom to act as WE want so important that we dare not trust some future prosecutor, and therefore still keep them out?

[Tom Barnett]

That protection is already accomplished. America has concluded roughly 100 bilateral immunity treaties (re: Article 98 of the ICC treaty). Those treaties are basically all with Gap or Seam states, because virtually none of the Core states have been willing to sign them.

Those treaties mean we're immune from prosecution for actions committed in these countries, or essentially the entire Gap.

My argument has always been: once we've gotten such immunity, then submitting the post-war activities to ICC purview is no problem, for certainly, we don't want to be engaging in any activities with SysAdmin forces that the world would collectively interpret as war crimes.