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The Right Is
Wrong About Justice
"This legislation is, in effect, a protection
of war criminals" - William
Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal
Court.
While America tells the world to get behind its 'global war against
terrorism' and support the bombing of Afghanistan, a law is being
rushed
through that will scupper attempts to set up an international
criminal
court - a court which would be the very body to bring to justice
those
responsible for the attacks on September 11th. The proposed law
has the
backing of Bush and has already been passed in the House of Representatives.
The Coalition for the International Criminal Court was formed
in 1995 and
is a network of over a thousand non-governmental organizations
and
international law experts from every corner of the world. It's
pushing for
the creation of a permanent and independent International Criminal
Court
(ICC) that "will investigate and bring to justice individuals
who commit
war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide." 42 countries,
including
the UK, have signed the treaty which ICC Convenor William Pace,
reckons
"will be a powerful international legal tool in the fight against
global
terrorism." The US however doesn't want anything to do with it,
complaining
that "its power could be easily misused to make capricious arrests
of
American officials or military personnel abroad." Because as everybody
knows, the rest of the world commits war crimes but not the good
ol' USA.
So using the current climate of patriotic hysteria Republican
lunatic
Senator Jesse Helms is pushing a bill of extreme anti-ICC legislation
- The
American Servicemembers' Protection Act. The Act aims to stop
the
convention getting the magic number of 60 countries signing up
to it -
which is how many signatures are needed to make the ICC international
law.
Amongst the highlights the Act threatens to cut off military aid
to
countries that ratify the ICC treaty - apart from NATO, Israel
and Egypt -
hoping this economic blackmail will stop weaker countries signing
up. These
are often the countries which are backed by the US, have bad human
rights
records, and in some cases are the places where war crimes are
being
committed. The Act would mean that the US military would not take
on any UN
peacekeeping roles unless they were made exempt from ICC prosecution.
It
would prohibit US co-operation with ICC inspectors even in a case
of
international terrorism and give the American President "all means
necessary and appropriate to bring about the release from captivity
of US
or allied personnel detained or imprisoned against their will
by or on
behalf of the Court, including military force." This in theory
could lead
to the invasion and bombing of Holland, since the ICC will be
based in The
Hague! As Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch points out " the
State
Department has justendorsed a bill that authorizes an invasion
of the
Netherlands." No wonder critics are calling it the Invade the
Hague Act.
All this hasn't gone too well with America's allies. A European
delegate at
the United Nations said that legislation "imposing military and
legal
reprisals is unprecedented and unacceptable." While Richard Dicker,added
"This makes no sense. It hardly seems like a good moment for the
U.S. to be
threatening sanctions against dozens of countries simply because
they want
to bring to justice the perpetrators of crimes against humanity."
Forget the talk about a war on terrorism, America wants to be
the worlds
judge, jury and executioner. As comedian and activist Mark Thomas
points
out "In a sickening display of hypocrisy America is acting in
its own
narrow interests with typical double standards. Supporting terrorism
is bad
except when we do it, the rule of law is good except when it might
be used
against us, war crimes must be punished except if we commit them.
Standing
shoulder to shoulder? No chance! America's natural position is
standing
behind another country pointing a gun at its head."
* More info on the court: www.iccnow.org
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