The UN Security Council renewed a one-year exemption for US peacekeeping troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court, despite the opposition of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

A resolution to renew the exemption for states that have not ratified the ICC's founding statute for 12 months from July 1 was adopted by 12 votes to none. France, Germany and Syria abstained.

Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations speaks to the U.N. Security Council Thursday, June 12, 2003. The Council approved another one-year exemption for American peacekeepers from prosecution by the new international war crimes tribunal. France, Germany and Syria abstained. (AP Photos/Ed Bailey)

The deputy US ambassador, James Cunningham, welcomed the vote, but said "like any compromise, the resolution does not address all our concerns."

Rejecting the claims of many speakers in an open debate which preceded the vote that the United States was seeking to put its nationals above the law, Cunningham declared that "the ICC is not the law" and described the court as "a fatally flawed institution."

He repeated US government concerns that it could be used for politically motivated prosecutions.

The first speaker in the debate, Annan warned the council that it would undermine its own authority as well as that of the ICC if the exemption became "an annual routine."

Established under the 1998 Rome Statute, the ICC is the first permanent international court to try cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The court's judges and prosecutor were appointed this year, but no case has yet been brought before it.

No soldier serving under the UN blue flag had ever been accused of an offence "anywhere near the kind of crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC," Annan said.

The resolution "deals not only with a hypothetical case, but with a highly improbable one," he said.

Last year, the council voted unanimously for the exemption after the United States vetoed the extension of a UN police-training mission in Bosnia and threatened to do the same for all other peacekeeping operations as their mandates came up for renewal.

The US-drafted resolution sought to "elevate an entire category of people above the law."

Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, Jordan's UN ambassador

Annan told council members he believed they were "acting in good faith" to protect the future of peacekeeping missions.

But the legitimacy of peacekeeping would be undermined if the council repeatedly renewed the exemption and gave the impression that "it wished to claim absolute and permanent immunity for people serving in the operations it establishes," he said.

Fifteen of the 90 countries which have ratified the statute asked to take part in the debate as non-members of the council.

They included the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the council has authorized deployment of a heavily armed international force, led by France, to prevent further massacres of civilians by rebel militias.

Almost every speaker noted that the ICC can prosecute only when a crime is committed on the territory of a state which is a party to the statute, or where the person accused of committing it is a citizen of such a state.

They also remarked that a case can be brought before the court only if a country is unwilling or unable to prosecute in its national courts.

Jordan's ambassador to the United Nations, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, said the US-drafted resolution sought to "elevate an entire category of people above the law."

The prince is chairman of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute and presided over the election of the court's 18 judges and first prosecutor in March and April of this year.

"The Security Council should not be rewriting treaties that were negotiated by the entire international community," he said -- a point emphasized by Japanese Ambassador Koichi Haraguchi and other speakers.

Canadian Ambassador Paul Heinbecker said the ICC was "the logical extension" of the post-World War II Nuremberg tribunal and the ad hoc UN war crimes courts for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, all of which were set up with the active support of the United States.

The ICC had additional built-in safeguards to prevent frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions, he said.

It was set up to try "monsters," and "its deterrent character is crucial to saving the victims of future crimes," he said.

Copyright 2003 AFP

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