Countries Must Choose: ICC or US Dollars

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Countries Must Choose: ICC or US Dollars

Published on Sunday, June 29, 2003 by the Toronto Star

Countries Must Choose: ICC or U.S. Dollars
No military aid for friends of court
Americans insist on immunity deals

by Karen Kleiss

More than 40 countries around the world face losing hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance on Tuesday, when a new U.S. law makes it illegal for the United States to give military aid to nations that support the International Criminal Court.

Members of NATO, including Canada, major non-NATO allies and countries that have received a presidential waiver are exempt from the law.

Washington strongly opposes the court, claiming it threatens U.S. sovereignty and will be used to put Americans on trial for political reasons.

The permanent International Criminal Court, which prosecutes exceptionally heinous, calculated and large-scale crimes like genocide, was hailed as an historic triumph for human rights when it was created in July of 1998. Since then, 139 of the world's 193 nations have signed the court's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, and 90 countries have ratified it.

The U.S. was intensely involved in shaping the court and former president Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in December, 2000.

But last year, President George W. Bush officially withdrew support for the court, becoming the first U.S. president ever to remove his country's signature from an international treaty.

He then signed into law the American Servicemember's Protection Act, which enshrined his opposition to the court and set Tuesday's deadline, when countries must either sign an immunity agreement, promising not to turn Americans over to the court, or face the prospect of losing millions in military assistance.

An estimated 45 nations already have signed such immunity agreements. But critics say the contracts contravene international law and those who sign them do so because the United States has threatened to withdraw essential aid.

"The U.S. is preying on small, vulnerable, impoverished states that are hugely dependent on assistance — military, economic, political — from the United States," says Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice program at Human Rights Watch.

Those reported to have signed include Micronesia, which is set to receive $1.8 billion (all figures U.S.) in aid over 20 years, and the Marshall Islands, which will get nearly $1 billion over the same period. Israel and India have also signed.

Canada, Sweden and the European Union support the ICC and have steadfastly refused to sign immunity agreements. Japan and Norway are expected to register their refusal shortly.

U.S. diplomats around the world have been spreading the American message.

An op-ed letter from U.S. ambassador Lawrence Rossin, published in a Zagreb newspaper last month, warned that Croatia "could forfeit up to $19 million" in military aid if it fails to sign an immunity agreement.

"U.S. military assistance is significant," he wrote. "It helps prepare the Croatian Armed Forces for NATO membership."

The U.S. embassy in Zagreb says the ambassador was simply giving a clear explanation of the American position, but Dicker says the letter implies that Croatia will essentially forfeit NATO membership if it doesn't sign the immunity agreement.

"It's essentially saying the $19 million in military assistance you're going to lose is crucial to modernizing your armed forces and, as we know, modern forces are essential for NATO accession."

Last month, Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came under harsh criticism from a government opposition member after she signed an immunity agreement with the U.S. and the Philippines received $30 million in military aid.

Bayan Muna party-list representative Satur Ocampo said the bill "practically allows GIs to act at will while in Philippine territory and would render useless any effort to regulate their actions."

Washington, meanwhile, insists the agreements are both legal and essential "to protect American citizens from politically motivated prosecutions by a court of which we are not a member."

"We believe in justice and the rule of law and accountability," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters after signing an immunity agreement with the former Soviet republic of Georgia. "As a sovereign nation, the United States accepts the responsibility to investigate and prosecute its own citizens for such offences should they occur."

But supporters of the court say it has built-in protections against politically motivated trials, the most important being that the ICC would step in to prosecute a U.S. citizen for war crimes only if the United States refuses to do so. Washington is not persuaded, however, and continues to reject the court.

"Their whole approach to the ICC is coloured and shaped by U.S. exceptionalism," says Dicker of Human Rights Watch.

"I think they see their role as superpower as a licence to roam the world, deploying armed forces where they see fit, and they see the court as some potential arbiter of that conduct."

Antonio Cassese, professor of international law at Italy's Florence University and former president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, notes that the immunity agreements don't obligate the United States to prosecute any of its citizens accused of war crimes.

"These immunity agreements are very vague," he says.

"One would expect they would be made conditional on the obligation by the Americans to bring (an accused American) to trial ... but there is no such obligation."

Rights groups have said the United States is effectively undermining the ICC by inducing countries to sign the immunity agreements and that a court powerless to prosecute the world's superpower will quickly lose its legitimacy with the rest of the world.

But Cassese doesn't agree.

"The ICC is going to become stronger," he says.

"It will get a lot of support, and it will take action where horrendous crimes are being committed, and in a matter of 10 or 15 years, it will show (itself) to be effective."

In the end, he predicts, "the Americans will gradually have to come to terms with the ICC."

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