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Us scourned court { April 12 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
A reality: new global criminal tribunal
Barbara Crossette The New York Times
Friday, April 12, 2002
Permanent court is lauded by UN but scorned by U.S.
UNITED NATIONS, New York The world's first permanent criminal court for the prosecution of dictators and war criminals became a reality Thursday, more than half a century after such a tribunal was first proposed in the ruins of World War II.
"The long-held dream of the International Criminal Court will now be realized," said Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "Impunity has been dealt a decisive blow. "
The court closes a gap in international law by holding individuals, not nations or armies, responsible for the most horrific crimes, Mr. Annan said, speaking at a news conference in Rome, where more than 100 countries met in 1998 to propose the establishment of the tribunal. The court is expected to take shape in The Hague over the next year, beside the International Court of Justice, which rules in disputes between countries.
The establishment of the International Criminal Court, which assumes jurisdiction over genocide and war crimes cases, beginning July 1, has been broadly welcomed by most democratic nations, American lawyers' associations and human rights groups. But it has an implacable foe in President George W. Bush's administration, which appears to be on the verge of, not only renouncing the tribunal, but also removing the signature of the United States from the treaty that created it.
The treaty, White House officials say, will never be sent to the Senate for ratification. Congress has already passed a law forbidding Americans at all levels of government from cooperating with it.
Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said in an interview that rescinding the signature from the treaty would be a terrible precedent.
"No American president in 200 years has unsigned a treaty, as far as we can find," he said. "It would also send a signal to other governments around the world that treaties they signed are unsignable." Arms control advocates fear that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bars nuclear explosions, might be next in line.
The treaty was signed by the Clinton administration in 1996 and rejected by the Senate in 1999.
The International Criminal Court, created to try individuals accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity - future Hitlers and Pol Pots - officially came to life in a ceremony at the United Nations on Thursday morning, when 10 nations deposited their ratifications, increasing the number of countries ratifying the treaty to 66, half a dozen more than the required 60.
"A page in the history of humankind is being turned," said Hans Corell, a Swedish judge and international lawyer and the United Nations top legal officer, who accepted the 10 ratifications.
Corell accepted ratification papers from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Ireland, Jordan, Mongolia, Niger, Romania and Slovakia.
International law groups and human rights organizations say that American opposition to the court, not all of it from Republicans, has been successful in portraying it as a danger to American sovereignty and a threat to American officials and troops because so little is known in the United States about the tribunal.
Richard Dicker, director of international legal programs at Human Rights Watch, said: "There has been such an active disinformation campaign about this court, and those who are behind this enjoy a real advantage in that they are describing an institution that does not yet exist. What they have done is describe it in the most nightmarish terms, with all kinds of scenarios of innocent Americans' being persecuted by individuals from governments that are actively hostile to the United States."
"It will be much harder to do that when we will run up against the reality of this institution that will be staffed by judges from the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, South Africa, Senegal, Argentina - states that are committed to the rule of law," he said.
Annan tried to allay U.S. fears. "The court will prosecute in situations where the country concerned is either unable or unwilling to prosecute," he said. "Countries with good judicial systems, who apply the rule of law, and prosecute criminals and do it promptly and fairly, need not fear. It is where they fail that the court steps in."
90 to 100 signers expected
Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, said "signs are good" that between 90 and 100 countries will have ratified the treaty by early next year, The Associated Press reported from the United Nations.
"The International Criminal Court is potentially the most important human rights institution created in 50 years. It will be the court where the Saddam Husseins, Pol Pots and Augusto Pinochets of the future are held to account," Dicker said, referring to Iraq's president, Cambodia's late Khmer Rouge leader, and the former Chilean dictator.
Philippe Kirsch, chairman of the commission preparing for the court's operation, said he believed that once the court showed it will act in "a very judicial and nonpolitical way," there would be less opposition.
"In my view, given the United States' tradition of commitment to international justice, it is a matter of time before there is some form of cooperation developing between the United States and an institution of this importance," he said.
In the past 50 years, more than 86 million civilians have died in 250 conflicts around the world, and more than 170 million people have been stripped of their rights, property and dignity, according to the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, which represents about 1,000 organizations and legal experts.
"Most of these victims have been simply forgotten and few perpetrators have been brought to justice," the coalition said.
Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune
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