Extract from SchNEWS, 12th October 2001

COURTIN' TROUBLE

"This legislation is, in effect, a protection of war criminals" - William Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

While America tells the world to get behind its 'global war against terrorism' and support the bombing of Afghanistan, a law is being rushed through that will scupper attempts to set up an international criminal
court - a court which would be the very body to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks on September 11th. The proposed law has the backing of Bush and has already been passed in the House of
Representatives.

The Coalition for the International Criminal Court was formed in 1995 and is a network of over a thousand non-governmental organizations and international law experts from every corner of the world. It's pushing for
the creation of a permanent and independent International Criminal Court (ICC) that "will investigate and bring to justice individuals who commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide." 42 countries, including
the UK, have signed the treaty which ICC Convenor William Pace, reckons "will be a powerful international legal tool in the fight against global terrorism." The US however doesn't want anything to do with it, complaining
that "its power could be easily misused to make capricious arrests of American officials or military personnel abroad." Because as everybody knows, the rest of the world commits war crimes but not the good ol' USA.

So using the current climate of patriotic hysteria Republican lunatic Senator Jesse Helms is pushing a bill of extreme anti-ICC legislation - The American Servicemembers' Protection Act. The Act aims to stop the
convention getting the magic number of 60 countries signing up to it - which is how many signatures are needed to make the ICC international law.

Amongst the highlights the Act threatens to cut off military aid to countries that ratify the ICC treaty - apart from NATO, Israel and Egypt - hoping this economic blackmail will stop weaker countries signing up. These are often the countries which are backed by the US, have bad human rights records, and in some cases are the places where war crimes are being committed. The Act would mean that the US military would not take on any UN peacekeeping roles unless they were made exempt from ICC prosecution. It would prohibit US co-operation with ICC inspectors even in a case of international terrorism and give the American President "all means
necessary and appropriate to bring about the release from captivity of US or allied personnel detained or imprisoned against their will by or on behalf of the Court, including military force." This in theory could lead
to the invasion and bombing of Holland, since the ICC will be based in The Hague! As Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch points out " the State Department has just endorsed a bill that authorizes an invasion of the Netherlands." No wonder critics are calling it the Invade the Hague Act.

All this hasn't gone too well with America's allies. A European delegate at the United Nations said that legislation "imposing military and legal reprisals is unprecedented and unacceptable." While Richard Dicker, added
"This makes no sense. It hardly seems like a good moment for the U.S. to be threatening sanctions against dozens of countries simply because they want to bring to justice the perpetrators of crimes against humanity."

Forget the talk about a war on terrorism, America wants to be the worlds judge, jury and executioner. As comedian and activist Mark Thomas points out "In a sickening display of hypocrisy America is acting in its own
narrow interests with typical double standards. Supporting terrorism is bad except when we do it, the rule of law is good except when it might be used against us, war crimes must be punished except if we commit them. Standing shoulder to shoulder? No chance! America's natural position is standing behind another country pointing a gun at its head."

* More info on the court: www.iccnow.org


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