RIGHTS-UN: Battle Over Criminal Court Not Over

By Farhan Haq

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 3 (IPS) - The United States was continuing with its

campaign to block the creation of a global court to try war criminals, Human

Rights Watch (HRW) declared Thursday.

The US-based human rights group said in a statement to the United Nations

that, although the statute to create an International Criminal Court (ICC)

had been approved overwhelmingly at a conference in July, Washington was

still labbying hard to re-open discussions on the Court's composition.

Supporters of the ICC should now ''hold the line in the face of Washington's

effort...to oppose a Court which has even the theoretical possibility of

arresting an American,'' argued Reed Brody, HRW advocacy director.

Brody cited reports that, sincxe the Rome conference., the United States had

tried to ''open up the statute.'' What the U.S. government wanted, he said,

was an ''ironclad guarantee that U.S. citizens would never be brought before

the Court'' which, he argued, could require provisions that would render the

ICC ineffective.

American officials have made no secret to their opposition to establishing

any Court that could try people for crimes against humanity without first

seeking authorisation from the U.N. Security Council, where the United

States and four other nations hold the power of veto.

The United States was one of only seven countries, including Iraq and Libya,

which opposed the creation of the ICC during a recorded vote at the Rome

conference in July, compared to 120 nations - including most key U.S. allies

- which supported it.

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By this week, 61 countries - including Britain, normally a U.S. ally on U.N.

affairs - had signed the ICC statute, which must be ratified by the

legislatures of 60 countries before it can enter into force.

Last month, Ambassador David Scheffer, head of the U.S. delegation present

at the Rome talks, underscored Washington's lingering opposition to the ICC,

arguing, ''The United States will not sign the (ICC) treaty in its present

form, nor is there any prospect of our signing the present treaty text in

the future.''

Scheffer complained that, under present guidelines, the Court could try U.S.

military officials for ''mistakenly'' shooting civilians during a

peacekeeping operation - one of several key issues that has rendered the

Court ''unacceptable'' to the Pentagon and to President Bill Clinton's

administration.

''We fear that, without the United States, the effectiveness of the

permanent International Criminal Court will fall far short of its

potential,'' Scheffer warned.

Most diplomats believed that the U.S. fear of unwarranted prosecution of its

nationals was unwarranted. ''The statute contains so many safeguards as to

make this possibility extremely remote,'' Philippe Kirsch, the Canadian

diplomat who chaired the Rome meetings, argued of the concerns about

politically-biased ICC prosecutions.

Human rights activists, on the other hand, worry that too many concessions

to U.S. demands would weaken the Court considerably. ''Maybe if the United

States were involved, the Court would be more effective,'' said Emma Bonino,

the European Union's humanitarian commissioner. ''But that doesn't mean the

Court has to be paralysed'' until Washington joins.

Brody contended that nations have already paid a steep price in their

efforts to bring the United States on board during the five- week Rome

conference. ''The future ICC was significantly weakened by last-minute

compromises in a futile attempt to placate the United States,'' he argued.

Among them, he said, was language that ensures that war crimes suspects can

only be tried by the ICC if either the country of the suspect's nationality

or the one on which the alleged crimes were committed has ratified the

statute.

By those standards, Brody warned, Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile - now

awaiting the result of hearings in Britain on whether he should be

extradited to face trial in Spain for human rights abuses - would likely not

face any ICC trial if Chile did not ratify the statute. ''If Chile had not

ratified the proposal ... absent a Security Council referral, the ICC would

be impotent to try Pinochet,'' he said.

(Brody added that his example was hypothetical: Chile signed he ICC statute,

but the Court cannot judge crimes - like the killings blamed on Pinochet

during his rule from 1973-1990 - that occured before its creation.)

U.S. diplomats have not commented on the efforts to oppose the Court,

although Scheffer warned in Rome that Washington would ''actively oppose''

any Court it deemed unacceptable. Several nations have reported that key

officials, including military officials, have been briefed by their U.S.

counterparts on the power any future ICC could have to prosecute their

leadership - a tactic which Washington also tried prior to the Rome

meetings.

Despite signs of U.S. pressure, ICC supporters believed that widespread

backing of the Court - from Europe to Latin America and most of Africa, -

ensured that it would not be weakened from the outlines agreed in Rome.

''We don't think (the U.S. effort) is going to succeed,'' Brody said. The

120 nations who voted for the ICC would likely resist any re-opening of key

issues, he contended.

Bonino added that, as with the Ottawa Convention to prohibit landmines that

was agreed upon last year despite U.S. opposition, Washington will

eventually have to sign on to avoid the pitfalls of remaining outside the

treaty.

''Nothing is more volatile than politics,'' she told IPS recently. ''I am

confident that eventually the United States will join.'' (END/IPS/fah/mk/98)