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ICC Adds Aggression to List of Crimes Despite US Opposition
KAMPALA - In a move that international lawyers describe as "a giant leap," members of the International Criminal Court agreed to add aggression to the court's short list of prosecutable crimes.
At least seven years too late for these two, but the ICC has approved new language to make 'wars of aggression' a prosecutable offense by adopting a new resolution. Under the administration of President George W. Bush, the United States had virtually no involvement with the ICC. The United States opposed the resolution, but as a non-member of the
eight-year old court, had no ability to block the adoption.
Still, it was notable that the United States even showed up for the debate.
State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh and Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen Rapp led a sizeable U.S. delegation to a two week meeting in Kampala, Uganda. It ended early in the morning on Saturday with the consensus adoption of the definition of aggression and mechanisms for triggering an investigation.
The resolution will not go into effect until at least 2017, and the court has no jurisdiction to bring aggression chares against nationals from non-ICC member countries, which include the U.S., Russia and China. Even member countries have a way to opt-out.
The ICC is intended as a court of last resort to punish crimes that shock the conscience – genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and now aggression – when there is no ability to do so at the national level.
Under the administration of President George W. Bush, the United States had virtually no involvement with the ICC. In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the Rome statute that created the court, but never brought the treaty to the Senate for a vote. In 2002, the Bush Administration sent a document “unsigning” Clinton’s acceptance. One hundred and eleven nations are ICC members.
The U.S. has been concerned that the court could attempt to prosecute American military members deployed overseas, even those on peacekeeping missions to stop war crimes.
To date, the ICC has brought only a handful of cases over incidents in the Central African Republic, Dafur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda and Kenya, and has yet to complete a trial.
The ICC delegates defined aggression as a “crime committed by a political or military leader which, by its character, gravity and scale constituted a manifest violation of the Charter.”
The United Nations Security Council will have the main responsibility for determining if an act of aggression has occurred.
To Rapp, who previously served as Chief of Prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, the definition of aggression is “exceptionally vague.”
It’s “not a war of aggression, like we prosecuted at Nuremberg, but a crime of aggression that could make any sort of border conflict into a case that would cause the indictment of chiefs of state,” he said in a video blog from Kampala posted on the International Justice Central website. “We want to make sure the institution grows responsibility and does not become politically motivated.”
In a transcript of a June 2 press briefing from the meeting, Koh compared the court to a “wobbly bicycle that’s just starting to get its legs and roll forward, and the question is whether to add a crime of aggression at this moment might put too much weight on it and transform the nature of its mandate.”
But David Scheffer, who was U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues from 1997 to 2001, wrote in a blog from Kampala for the American Society of International Law that “The historical significance of these developments cannot be understated.”
He continued, “This is truly one giant leap. Perhaps, just perhaps, the action in Kampala will finally lock in a credible means to holding powerful individuals, those who intentionally launch massive acts of aggression, accountable for their actions and to instilling, over the years, greater deterrence to the aggressive instincts of insecure leaders.”
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9 Comments so far
Show AllA war of aggression is already a war crime, under the Nuremberg principles.
It is called Crimes Against the Peace, along with Crimes Against Humanity.
In fact, the chief American Prosecutor at Nuremberg, Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, labeled the planning, conspiracy, initiating, and starting a war of aggression, the SUPREME war crime.
Exactly. It's hard to know what these people think they're doing, but it certainly sounds as though someone's confused.
Moreover, the US is a signer of the basic Treaty to Outlaw War (that's not its name, but it might as well be).
Precisely so, Ho, and Bush's administration and Obama's administration should be hanging next to the ghosts of their German thinkalikes.
I miss the man still, especially during that last year when he seemed to be going through a personal transformation ... maybe little Patrick's fight to live that he lost; maybe just JFK coming into his own as an honorable man and visionary:
"I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived — yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace. What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time." Address at The American University, Washington D.C. (10 June 1963)
This kind of attitude, along with trying to reign in the C.I.A., and giving a resounding NO to Israel regarding its desire for nuclear weapons, to be given or to have help in building their own arsenal, and JFK's realization that the Vietnam war was a mistake and it was time to get out ... All kinds of reasons for him to be killed; same as Martin Luther King, Jr., and then Bobby.
And the music did die [and he enjoyed bantering with Helen Thomas and her pointed questions in her first assignment covering the Presidency], and it's really been downhill and increasingly out of control and dishonest from there.
I could not believe when I was writing an essay on the matter that it took FORTY years for the GENOCIDE CONVENTION to be ratified by the U.S., and then there were so many IFs, Ands or Buts added by Senators that to intercede in matters of Genocide, the U.S. version rendered the GENOCIDE CONVENTION toothless.
Genocide Convention:
U.S. of A. signed: 11 Dec 1948 ratified: 25 Nov 1988
Israel signed: 17 Aug 1949 ratified: 9 Mar 1950
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The Rome Statute of The International Court at The Hague in the Netherlands was an important addition to the Genocide Convention in that with this carefully crafted, new body of law, The International Court became capable of trying INDIVIDUALS for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
The Rome Statute was ratified by the required number of 60 nations on April 11, 2002.
It was about to go into force on July 1, 2002, when, on May 6, 2002, the United States and Israel renounced and nullified the signatures of previous leaders of their respective countries, both of whom had signed on to The Rome Statute on December 31, 2000, the last day open for signing during that period. On May 6, 2002, the George W. Bush Administration then launched a campaign against The International Court and tried to influence and pressure other nations in various ways so that they would renounce their signatures of ratification for The Rome Statute. But this pressure campaign was not successful, despite GW's personal appearances at the United Nations to talk with delegates.
Currently 108 nations have ratified The Rome Statute of The International Court at The Hague.
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Very convenient for the U.S. and Israel not to recognize The Rome Statute, but maybe someday our president and Israel's prime minister may not be able to land their plane on the airstrip of some gutsy nation which signed on to The Rome Statute of the ICC.
Both countries did sign and ratify the Genocide Convention, their own toothless versions or not. Ya' never know.
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/cm
Bring America Back !!!!...........!!!!....The basic and fundamental fault of this ICC
would be allowing the UN Security Council to determine if an "Agression", or crime
has been committed.
****With the United States and Israel , already plainly Guilty of modern war crimes,
plenty of Agressions, and with their Veto Power there will never be a determination of their own Guilt.
****So the ICC will remain a 'toothless dragon' unless the 111 Nations who have signed
on can act and determine independently of the Guilty Giants.
Our nation has been seduced by the power and imagery of militarism, empire, and 'superpower' ideology...it's debatable whether Obama is an improvement of Bush's reckless, constitutional-shredding militarism...our President should be ashamed of opposing the ICC's efforts to stop military aggression b/c in seeking to maintain 'flexibility' for empire our nation is essentially covering for dictators, military juntas, and militarists...more death and destruction will be the result.
Crime is not a crime unless there is enforceable punishment,
which requires enforcers.
But maybe it is punishment enough to have the case argued, the evidence heard,
and a judgement passed. Social ostracisation was always a terrible punishment.
Now for the background. Instead of a useless biased inquiry, what if the Israeli aid flotilla piracy was judged as aggression?
The entire US foriegn policy seems to be a history of plain aggression. Aggression is certainly near the roots of our species diseases. Can making aggression a crime actually do anything about it? What about justifying defence to aggression? Will we be able to ever reduce aggression?
now start prosecuting america for its illegal immoral wars of aggression. america is nothing but an interfering warmongering land of the sick
http://elquinceavopaso.blogspot.com/2010/06/us-special-operations-forces-deployed.html
stay home yankee and mind your own business, you cant even fix your own problems, dont pretend you can fix others problems when you are the problem
Don't be fooled by the ICC for one second. The routine of this racket organisations is to create false tensions to engender dubious credibility. The gullible and careless will as usual fall for this routine old trick.That is all that is needed for the game to be played.
Get this, The ICC works for the EU and the Americans. They carry out their agenda are are largely financed by EU governments. The Americans fund them also, however, they do so through their coporations and not from the govenment directly. You can just imagine an institution with the ability to indict and convict being financed by global corporate entities, wtf!
Just a week or so ago the ICC was in Uganda "working" with the US for the US to have enforecement power of ICC court rulings! Now this is the same US which "refuses" to work under the rules of the ICC. what icoherence, What a joke
They front the ICC with 3rd world minions and "constables" from Ghana, Senegal etc to their dirty and more efficient work.
why does a dog lick its balls? Because it can