RIGHTS: Peacekeeping Resolutions A Major Test of U.S. Global Role

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 28 2002 (IPS) - The U.S. government’s commitment to multilateralism and international law are being severely tested by two resolutions submitted to the U.N. Security Council by Washington’s emissaries.

The resolutions would exempt U.S. citizens serving in U.N. peacekeeping operations (PKOs) from the jurisdiction of the new International Criminal Court (ICC), the world’s first permanent tribunal to prosecute war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity.

President George W. Bush’s administration is threatening to pull all U.S. personnel out of U.N. and U.N.-authorised PKOs and training operations if the resolutions are not approved, beginning with the almost 3,000 U.S. soldiers and trainers currently deployed in Bosnia.

At the same time, rightwing members of Congress, which has already approved legislation that bars virtually all U.S. support for the ICC once it is constituted at the Hague early next year, have warned that they will block all future U.S. appropriations for U.N. PKOs if Washington does not get its way. The United States currently provides about 25 percent of the U.N.’s peacekeeping budget.

Despite that threat, U.S. and international human rights groups are calling on other Security Council members to reject Washington’s resolutions outright. In particular, the effort is aimed at Britain and France, the two permanent members who, as part of the European Union (EU), have championed the ICC’s creation.

“The U.S. failed to win ironclad guarantees insulating itself from the court when the treaty was negotiated, and now Washington is trying to achieve its goal through other means,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). “This puts the very idea of treaty-making at risk.”

A vote on at least one of the resolutions could take place at any time before Sunday midnight, when the current U.N. mandate for the peacekeeping force in Bosnia expires. It was due to expire a week ago, but last week the Council extended it to July 1 after Washington tabled its resolutions. Intense consultations have ensued at U.N. headquarters in New York.

The issue arises in the context of growing fears on the part of much of the international community that the Bush administration is bent on pursuing a unilateralist foreign policy based largely on its unquestioned military supremacy.

Washington’s unilateralist trajectory has been clear since early last year, when it rejected the Kyoto Protocol to prevent global warming. Since the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

The trend has intensified with the U.S. withdrawal from the 1973 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and its pursuit of a national missile defence (NMD) system, its undermining of other international arms-control negotiations, its opposition to the deployment of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) beyond Kabul after the ouster the Taliban regime there last December, its newly stated strategic doctrine of “pre-emption,” and its frequently expressed determination to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by invasion if necessary.

Last month, the administration took the unprecedented step of formally renouncing its obligations as a signatory to the 1998 Rome Statute to establish the ICC. Its action was taken three weeks after the 60th signatory ratified the Statute, bringing it into legal effect as of July 1. Sixty-nine countries have now ratified the treaty out of almost 140 that have signed.

In announcing its decision to “unsign” the treaty, the administration complained that the ICC and its prosecutors will not be subject to the control of the Security Council, where Washington has veto power, and thus could pursue “politically-motivated prosecutions” against U.S. troops, such as those involved in the Afghanistan campaign. It also expressed concern that citizens of countries that are not party to the treaty, including the United States, will still be subject to the Court’s jurisdiction.

ICC say these arguments are deeply flawed, both because the Security Council can in fact exercise substantial control over the ICC and because it fails to recognise that jurisdiction over defendants can be obtained only if national systems of justice fail to investigate or, if warranted, prosecute them.

“The International Court, designed to try only the most heinous international crimes, contains ample safeguards against frivolous prosecutions,” wrote the New York Times Thursday. “Under both ICC and UN rules for peacekeepers, moreover, any American arrested for a crime would be sent home for trial.”

Shortly after it renounced its signature to the Rome Statute, Washington sought an exemption from ICC jurisdiction for U.S. nationals serving in the peacekeeping mission in East Timor. But the Security Council, encouraged by a State Department pledge that the administration was “not going to war” against the Court, rejected the proposal.

The latest two proposals represent a new stage in what appears to be a campaign against the ICC, according to its proponents. The first resolution would add a paragraph to the resolution renewing the U.N. mandate for the mission that would bar any transfer of any member of the PKO there to the ICC “without the consent of [the] contributing state.”

The second proposal would exempt peacekeepers in all U.N.-authorised or -mandated operations from ICC jurisdiction.

“If the Security Council were, in effect, able to amend the ICC’s jurisdiction simply by adopting a resolution, it would set a dangerous precedent allowing for future amendments of the Rome Statute and possibly other international treaties by means that circumvent the process and safeguards provided in each treaty,” Amnesty International said in a statement Thursday.

“Approving the U.S. proposals would have a far-reaching and devastating effect on international law,” said William Pace, convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

The EU sees the ICC “as a milestone in the development of international law,” Pierre Schori, Sweden’s U.N. ambassador, said at a seminar earlier this month. “We are prepared to act unanimously to defend the ICC Statute where needed. If the (Bush) administration insists, there will be a crisis.”