| ICC a Pesky Itch under
US Warhorse's Saddle
Never before has an NGO got so far in influencing international
law. And now, the Coalition for the International Criminal
Court (CICC) is in Porto Alegre to get civil society's support
"so we can go to countries like Japan or the United States"
and put some pressure on them to ratify the Rome Statute,
William Pace, governor at the CICC, told TerraViva.
The Rome Statute establishes a permanent International Criminal
Court. By December 2000, 66 countries had ratified the Statute,
allowing the Court to commence jurisdiction on July 1, 2002.
The court's "Advance Team" is already at work in
The Hague creating the technical and administrative infrastructure
that the court will need to open in 2003.
The CICC is a network of well over 1,000 NGOs advocating
for the first permanent international judicial body with the
authority to trying individuals for genocide, crimes against
humanity and war crimes. According to Pace, the CICC's efforts
contributed to the fact that independent prosecutors, including
NGOs, are included in the tribunal.
"It frustrated the U.S. as much as any warlord in Somalia,"
he says. "They were extremely against it." A total
of 139 nations voted in favour of adopting the Statute. Only
seven nations voted against, including the U.S., Iraq, Israel
and China.
In theory, if civilians were targeted in a war against Iraq,
U.S. President George Bush could be arrested, for instance,
while sipping a café au lait in France, which has ratified
the Rome Statute.
This creates an interesting dilemma for Britain, as it ratified
the Statute while actively backing Washington's stand on Iraq.
As for who could be the first in the dock at the ICC, Pace
does not say. But, he notes, one does not need to go too far
in history to see that ongoing violence against civilians
in Colombia could be a candidate scenario.
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