US President George Bush thinks that the United States should be free to carry out war crimes in the name of "fighting terrorism".
Its war on Afghanistan and its declaration of intent to invade Iraq again are blatant examples of Washington's war-like unilateralism. Its declaration of a new "first-strike" military doctrine, its tearing up of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and its declared preparedness to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear opponents are further examples.
Now the US is refusing to ratify the treaty to establish an International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The treaty was signed by former US president Bill Clinton in 1998.
The Bush administration says that the ICC would undermine the sovereignty of the United States. Yet the US has forced other countries to surrender their sovereignty to the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and numerous US-assembled military expeditions. The rule is clear: rich and powerful countries have sovereignty but poor and oppressed nations have none.
The Howard (best-friend-of-the-US) government dutifully started to consider reversing its previously strong support for the ICC, and the cabinet has agreed to ratify the treaty only subject to conditions which would prevent any Australian from being prosecuted by the court.
The US and allied imperialist governments were very happy to have Slobodan Milosevic tried for war crimes before an international tribunal, but the remotest possibility that their own state officials may one day face indictment is unacceptable to them.
Actually, under the statutes of the treaty which will govern the ICC once it is established on July 1 (six more countries have ratified the treaty than the 60 required for its establishment), the United Nations Security Council can terminate any prosecution before the ICC simply by passing a resolution. Given US domination of the Security Council, it is therefore unlikely that anyone in the war-hungry Bush administration will ever be convicted by this court.
Furthermore, the ICC will not have any jurisdiction over crimes that were committed before it is formed.
So what do Washington and its imperial allies fear? They don't want to wear even the prospect of war crime charges being laid against them. They are carrying out — and are about to do more — bloody things in the name of the "war against terrorism" and they want utter impunity to do this.
In Afghanistan today, the US and its allied troops, including Australian special forces, are killing innocent peasants and even some troops of their local military allies. In the Middle East, Washington continues to arm and support the Israeli war criminal Ariel Sharon and it has openly assigned the CIA to assassinate its former ally, war criminal Saddam Hussein.
While no reasonable person can have much faith that the ICC will, by itself, prevent imperial impunity and the war crimes of the richest and most powerful countries in the world, it is one more arena in which public pressure may build up.
Ultimately, it won't be the ICC or any other court that stops the global corporate rulers and their governments; it will be the actions of the millions whom they exploit and oppress. But any institution that helps to expose the war criminals can help build popular opposition, and the ICC could be one of those institutions.
From Green Left Weekly, June 26, 2002.
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