Prosecuting Gadhafi, Prosecuting U.S. Leaders

The Washington Times editorialized Tuesday: "The Obama administration is backing the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. It is a dangerous precedent for the United States to rush to affirm the jurisdiction of this relatively new international body, particularly with a president whose counterterrorism strategy has made his name synonymous with 'targeted killing.' On Monday, ICC judges granted warrants for Col. Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and regime intelligence chief Abdullah Sanussi. ...

'In 2010, American law professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, filed a complaint with the ICC prosecutor against Mr. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald H. Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales for 'their criminal policy and practice of 'extraordinary rendition' perpetrated upon about 100 human beings.' The dirty little secret is that renditions have continued -- and some sources say increased -- under the Obama administration. This, combined with the questionable legality of drone strikes under international law, could come back to haunt the White House if the ICC continues to expand its authority."

FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle at law.uiuc.edu
Professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, Boyle said today: "In my 2010 ICC Complaint against Bush et al., which is still pending, I informed the ICC Prosecutor that the Obama administration publicly stated that it will continue the Bush et al. policy and practice of extraordinary renditions, which is really a euphemism for the enforced disappearances of human beings and their consequent torture by other States, and thus Crimes Against Humanity under the ICC Rome Statute. One of the charges against Colonel Gadhafi is the enforced disappearances of human beings as a Crime Against Humanity. Right now I do not have the documented facts necessary to file an ICC Complaint against President Obama and CIA Director Panetta, inter alia. But if and when such credible evidence emerges into the public record, I will file such an ICC Complaint against Obama, Panetta et al. if their 'extraordinary renditions' do not terminate immediately. In addition, the Obama administration's drone strikes in Afghanistan are subject to the jurisdiction of the ICC and should be terminated immediately because they are wreaking indiscriminate war crimes upon the civilian population of that benighted country and thus add up to Crimes Against Humanity under the ICC Rome Statute. The same general principles of international criminal law likewise apply to the CIA drone strikes in Pakistan."