International Court
Garrett, Stephen A.
Stephen A. Garrett INTERNATIONAL COURT Why Clinton should reconsider In July 1998, a treaty establishing a permanent international criminal court (ICC) was tentatively approved by some 120...
...The ICC will also have a full-time prosecutor with authority to initiate cases on his own, although the UN Security Council and individual countries will also have the right to suggest possible prosecutions...
...As State Department spokesman James Rubin put it, the Rome statute was "a rush to judgment that does not adequately reflect the important role that America and our armed forces play around the world...
...The ICC will have an investigatory branch, as well as a separate appellate court to hear appeals of its verdicts...
...The Clinton administration explained its negative vote on the ICC largely in terms of its fear that American military personnel serving overseas on peacekeeping missions might be dragged before the ICC on trumped-up charges of war crimes presented by an ideologically biased prosecutor...
...The Rome treaty actually allows a member country to deny ICC jurisdiction over its nationals in war-crimes cases for a period of seven years...
...Seven countries expressed their opposition at Rome to the new court, among them Libya, Algeria, China, and—most notably—the United States...
...It was agreed at Rome that the court would have no retroactive authority, but would concern itself only with cases that developed after its coming into being...
...Moreover, arCommonweal I I April 9,1999...
...However, even a cursory review of the ICC's proposed structure suggests that the stated rationale for Washington's rejection of the document was a peculiar and rather unconvincing one...
...The court will be based in the Hague, and will have eighteen judges from an equal number of countries, each appointed for a nine-year term...
...The treaty will formally enter into force after sixty countries deposit their official ratifications of the document with the United Nations in New York...
...The new court will have powers to indict and try individuals guilty of participating in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes...
...The maximum penalty that the ICC will be able to levy is life imprisonment, to be served in the prison system of any of several countries signifying in advance that they are willing to incarcerate those so convicted...
...Stephen A. Garrett INTERNATIONAL COURT Why Clinton should reconsider In July 1998, a treaty establishing a permanent international criminal court (ICC) was tentatively approved by some 120 counties after an extensive period of negotiations in Rome...
...Many standard judicial protections are included in the Rome statute (for example, those having to do with double jeopardy...
...The creation of such a court was seen by most countries as a logical continuation of the precedent first established at the Nuremberg trials, and more recently by the ad hoc UN tribunals set up to deal with atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda...
Vol. 126 • April 1999 • No. 7
