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The ICC Crisis in the Security Council
As the International Criminal Court came into being on July 1, 2002, ratified by 74 nations and widely viewed as a milestone of international law and justice, the United States took bold steps to undercut it, complaining that the new court would subject US nationals to a politically-motivated jurisdiction. Policy makers in Washington say they are concerned about the plight of US soldiers charged with crimes while on peacekeeping missions, but their real concern is over challenges to conduct by high-ranking officials and military officers, who might one day be charged with crimes against humanity and genocide. With former Secretary of State Henry Kissenger pursued by courts in a half dozen countries, and former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet humbled by the web of international criminal law, there are ample warnings that even superpower status may not protect the most heinous of crimes.
The US has insisted that the UN Security Council adopt an omnibus resolution exempting all UN peacekeepers from the jurisdiction of the Court or, at least, that each new renewal of UN peacekeeping operations would include an exemption for that operation. The US has threatened to veto all resolutions renewing peacekeeping operations unless the Council agrees to the new language. On the eve of the Court's beginning, the US vetoed a resolution renewing the UN peacekeeping operation in Bosnia, though it later agreed to a three-day extension to allow for further negotiations.
The US move set off a firestorm of international protest and provoked strong opposition from most other nations. The Canadian Foreign Ministry called the US move "a frontal attack" on international law. Security Council ambassadors have stated that the Council should not be used to override international treaties and expressed shock that the US would be willing to wreck UN peacekeeping missions in order to demonstrate its objections to the Court.
The battle has wider significance than the jurisdiction of the ICC alone. It may prove a defining moment in the relations between the superpower and the rest of the international community. Even if the US "wins," and imposes its will, it will have created hostility and counter-alliances to challenge its domination in the future And if the US is forced to back down, as now seems faintly possible, it will have encountered its first major diplomatic setback after more than a decade of contemptuously imperial action on the international scene.
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