The Straits Times (Singapore)

January 5, 2001

US has to fall in line

THE United States has finally decided to sign the treaty to establish an International Criminal Court (ICC), with jurisdiction over genocide, war crimes and other crimes against humanity. President Bill Clinton had resisted signing it for months because of objections from Congressional Republicans and the Defense Department. Now that the presidential election is concluded, if messily, and only two weeks remain before he leaves office, he obviously feels that it is safe enough for him to do the right thing. Though the treaty has "significant flaws", he said, it was important for the US to sign it now so as to reaffirm its "strong support for international accountability" and to place it in a better position to negotiate changes in the court's structure and rules. While Mr. Clinton's decision is not binding on the US Senate, which will have to ratify the treaty before it takes effect in US law, it will bind, to some extent, the next administration. Though President-elect George Bush has said that he would not

send the treaty up for ratification in "its current form", he cannot simply renounce it without paying a hefty diplomatic price. He can, of course, use the threat by Senator Jesse Helms, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to introduce a Bill to bar US cooperation with the ICC, as an excuse to reverse Mr. Clinton's decision, but that would only signal to the rest of the world that a Bush administration is prepared to hold US foreign policy hostage to the dictates of the Republican right. If the US is truly interested in fostering an international regime respectful of human rights, it should support the ICC and ratify the treaty.

In essence, the treaty is an affirmation that the world so abhors certain crimes against humanity that it is prepared to act in unison to punish the individuals who perpetrate them. Since the end of the Second World War, many such tribunals have been established to try specific instances of genocide or gross violations of human rights in specific countries -- most recently, in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda -but all of these bodies have been ad hoc in nature. By developing precise definitions of human rights crimes, and defining strict procedures for their prosecution, the ICC will establish universal standards for these crimes, and signal to the world's dictators that they cannot brutalise their people with impunity.

What is there that Congressional Republicans find objectionable? Their claim that the court might subject US troops, diplomats and other officials to frivolous or politically-motivated prosecutions does not cut much ice.

As Mr. Clinton himself noted, the ICC will not supersede "functioning national judicial systems", and can only take action against an individual if his country is unwilling or unable to act against him. Presumably, if US troops are ever again involved in atrocities like the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the US government will act against them. But if for some reason it does not, why would anyone, including conservative Americans who believe in the universality of human rights, object to the ICC prosecuting them? Not a single Western European state fears this possibility. The other 138 countries which have signed the treaty do not. Even Israel, whose troops are involved in almost daily combat, does not. Is it possible that some US politicians believe that while the concept of human rights may be universal, the only valid interpretation of its particulars is that which emanates from the US? But that is precisely what America's ideological opponents have been saying for years. Does Mr. Bush wish to confirm their

suspicion?