Saturday 26 April 2008

US Positive about International Criminal Court

A few days ago I posted an item entitled : 'U.S. Accepts International Criminal Court .' It was the title of an article in last Friday's Wall Street Journal: https://staffmail.nuigalway.ie/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120917156494046579.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. It was just a matter of time. Opposition to the Court has been one of the big disasters of United States foreign policy in recent years.
I have since obtained the link to the speech referred to: http://www.cfr.org/publication/16110/. It was delivered at DePaul University, in Chicago, at a conference commemorating the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute. Host of the conference was Professor Cherif Bassiouni, who has an honorary doctorate from our university.
Thanks to Megan Fairlie for this.

1 comment:

ajokic said...

It would appear that Dr. Schabas holds an extremely optimistic view of the U.S. position on the ICC. A reader could even be misled by the claim that the US is "positive" about the ICC, or that the U.S. "accepts" it. Indeed, upon reading the link to the speech delivered at DePaul by John B. Bellinger, legal advisor to the US Secretary of State, one will note that he reasserts, at least twice, that

"it is unlikely that the United States will become a party to the Rome Statute any time in the foreseeable future".

And that hardly constitutes "acceptance", nor does it justify the proclamation that it was just "a matter of time". For what? Continued US non-participation in the ICC and chronic concerns about the crime of aggression which Bellinger views with skepticism? Agression--the supreme crime under international law per Nuremberg—cannot come under ICC's jurisdiction until its definition is agreed upon. This agreement is exactly what the US appears bent on preventing now as ever.