[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: War Crimes: US Insists Its Leaders are Unaccountable to the World

Thu May 26 23:46:35 PDT 2005

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>War Crimes: US Insists Its Leaders are Unaccountable to the World
>By Edward Berger and Madeleine Rose
>
>The US has escalated its efforts to place itself 
>outside the jurisdiction of international 
>justice. Not only has the US refused to join the 
>International Criminal Court (ICC), but the 
>administration insists that other countries 
>accept that the US is above the law-or else, 
>they lose economic and military aid. On Dec. 7, 
>Bush signed an Appropriations Bill (HR 4818) 
>that included a controversial provision denying 
>economic assistance to countries that refuse to 
>grant immunity to US citizens before the ICC.  A 
>previous bill in 2002 denied funds for military 
>assistance to such countries. These explicit 
>attempts to undermine the ICC are occurring 
>amidst worldwide accusations that the US may be 
>committing war crimes in Iraq and Guantanamo, 
>and thus may be a strategy to protect US 
>political and military leaders from prosecution 
>as war criminals.
>Internationally, there has been a succession of 
>efforts to establish rules governing warfare. 
>Best known are the four Geneva Conventions of 
>1949, which codified hundreds of provisions. The 
>first two Geneva Conventions define appropriate 
>treatment of wounded and sick members of the 
>armed forces on land and sea, e.g., "Any 
>attempts upon their lives or violence to their 
>persons, shall be strictly prohibited; in 
>particular, they shall not be murdered or 
>exterminatedŠ" [Article 12]. The third Geneva 
>Convention defines humane and prohibited 
>treatment of prisoners of war, e.g., "No 
>physical or mental torture, nor any other form 
>of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of 
>war to secure from them information of any kind 
>whateverŠ" [Article 17].  The fourth Geneva 
>Convention deals with the protection of 
>civilians and members of armed forces who are 
>rendered noncombatant, because of sickness or 
>wounds, e.g., "Civilian hospitals organized to 
>give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm 
>and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be 
>the object of attack but shall at all times be 
>respected and protected by the Parties to the 
>conflictŠ" [Article 18]. The Geneva Conventions 
>were updated in 1977 to provide greater 
>protections for victims of armed conflict, e.g., 
>"The presence within the civilian population of 
>individuals who do not come within the 
>definition of civilians does not deprive the 
>population of its civilian characterŠ" [Article 
>50].
>Efforts to Bypass the Geneva Conventions
>The US is a Party to the Geneva Conventions. 
>Thus, the administration's arbitrary decision to 
>label persons captured during the war in 
>Afghanistan as "enemy combatants" rather than 
>"prisoners of war" is highly controversial. It 
>signals a brazen attempt by the US to circumvent 
>the Geneva Conventions. Incredibly, Alberto R. 
>Gonzales, the President's Counsel (and Attorney 
>General nominee), advised Bush (Memorandum of 
>Jan. 25, 2002) that the President could decide 
>to ignore the Geneva Conventions, arguing that 
>the Geneva Convention's restrictions were 
>"obsolete. " His legal reasoning has since been 
>repudiated by US Courts, which have ruled that 
>the Geneva conventions do apply and that those 
>imprisoned at Guantanamo are entitled to POW 
>status.
>Recent allegations by the International 
>Committee of the Red Cross that the US military 
>is using tactics "tantamount to torture" on 
>prisoners at Guantanamo imply ongoing violations 
>of the Geneva Conventions. The horrific 
>treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib violated 
>prohibitions regarding POWs. Torture is a 
>violation of other treaties to which the US is a 
>Party. Torture is prohibited by the Universal 
>Declaration of Human Rights (Article 5, General 
>Assembly of the UN, 1948) and by the UN 
>Convention Against Torture.
>International Criminal Court:
>The Missing Link
>While there have been multiple conventions and 
>treaties regarding international humanitarian 
>law designed to protect combatants and 
>noncombatants, the missing link has been an 
>effective legal body to interpret and enforce 
>international law, and to hold individuals 
>criminally responsible for the most serious 
>violations. Following World War II, the 
>Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals prosecuted Axis 
>war criminals.  Nuremberg established that 
>individuals, as opposed to abstract entities 
>such as a State, could be held accountable for 
>war crimes. However, tribunals have been done on 
>an ad hoc basis, giving the impression of 
>selective prosecution and creating omissions in 
>who has been brought to justice. For example, no 
>one has been tried for the "killing fields" in 
>Cambodia. 
>Recognizing this limitation, members of the 
>international community worked for over 50 years 
>to establish an International Criminal Court 
>(ICC). The United Nations sponsored the 1998 
>Conference in Rome that established the 
>framework for the ICC. It was up to individual 
>countries to become signatories to the Rome 
>Statute, thereby proclaiming agreement, and then 
>to ratify the Statute, thus becoming a Party to 
>the ICC. As part of this process, each ICC 
>country develops its own implementing 
>legislation.  On April 11, 2002, the Court 
>received the 60th ratification, the number 
>necessary to trigger realization of the ICC.
>Crimes over which the ICC
>has Jurisdiction
>On July 1, 2002, the ICC began its jurisdiction 
>over genocide, crimes against humanity and war 
>crimes. In the future, the ICC will also have 
>jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. 
>"Genocide" refers to acts committed with intent 
>to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or 
>religious group.  A "crime against humanity" 
>refers to a widespread attack directed against a 
>civilian population, including murder, 
>extermination, enslavement, deportation or 
>forcible transfer, and rape. "War crimes" means 
>grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, 
>including willful killing of protected persons, 
>torture, and extensive destruction and 
>appropriation of property not justified by 
>military necessity. "War crimes" also include 
>intentionally attacking civilians and buildings 
>dedicated to religion or education, or 
>hospitals. The Rome Statute also considers as 
>war crimes the use of poison or poisoned 
>weapons, and methods of warfare which may cause 
>superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, or 
>which are inherently indiscriminate.
>Heads of State Are Accountable
>The ICC provisions apply equally to all persons 
>without any distinction based on official 
>capacity: "official capacity as a Head of State 
>or Government, a member of a Government or 
>parliamentŠshall in no case exempt a person from 
>criminal responsibilityŠ." Also, "A military 
>commanderŠshall be criminally responsible for 
>crimesŠcommitted by forces under his or her 
>effective command and control."
>A goal of the ICC is to deter future war crimes. In the words of Kofi Annan:  
>"Individual responsibility is important for two 
>reasons: First, persons who are tempted or 
>pressured to commit unspeakable crimes must be 
>deterred by the knowledge that one day they will 
>be individually called to accountŠAnd second, 
>only by clearly identifying the individuals 
>responsible for these crimes can we save whole 
>communities from being held collectively guilty. 
>It is the notion of collective guilt which is 
>the true enemy of peace, since it encourages 
>communities to nurture hatred against each other 
>from one generation to the next."_
>Independence and Limitations
>of the ICC
>The ICC is an independent judicial institution, 
>although the UN had a key role in its creation. 
>This independence is sometimes 
>overlooked-particularly by ICC opponents and 
>opponents of the UN. A limitation of the ICC is 
>that it has jurisdiction only over persons who 
>are citizens of ICC countries, or if relevant 
>crimes have been committed on the territory of 
>ICC countries. Thus, to be effective, the ICC 
>needs worldwide participation. Thus far, the 
>Statute has been signed by 139 countries and 
>ratified by 97; therefore, more than half the 
>192 UN countries have ratified. ICC countries 
>include all members of the European Union, 
>Australia, Canada, South Africa, and recently, 
>Afghanistan. Iraq and Iran (another prospective 
>US target) are not Parties to the ICC (Iran has 
>signed, but not ratified). 
>US Attempts to be Above the Law
>The US has not ratified the Rome Statute, and 
>has taken action to be exempt from the ICC's 
>jurisdiction. Near the end of his presidency, on 
>Dec. 31, 2000, Clinton signed the Statute. 
>However, in May 2002, the Bush administration 
>defiantly "unsigned" the ICC treaty and declared 
>its determination not to be a Party to the ICC.
>Moreover, the US administration is pressuring 
>ICC countries to exempt US citizens from the 
>reach of the ICC, by signing Bilateral Immunity 
>Agreements (BIA). In 2002 Congress passed the 
>American Servicemembers' Protection Act, which 
>slashed military assistance funds to ICC 
>countries who refused to sign a BIA.  Most 
>recently, on Dec. 7, Bush signed an 
>Appropriations Bill (HR 4818), which included an 
>amendment by outgoing Rep. Nethercutt from 
>Washington, eliminating Economic Support Fund 
>(ESF) aid to ICC countries that have not signed 
>a BIA. With a budget of $2.5 billion, the ESF 
>promotes the foreign aid policies of the US. 
>Over 50 countries could be affected by this 
>antagonistic policy, including Venezuela, 
>Ecuador, South Africa, Jordan, and Ireland.
>North Bay Congressional Rep. Lynn Woolsey voted 
>against the Nethercutt Amendment and against the 
>final Appropriations Bill, which included the 
>Amendment.  Mike Thompson voted against the 
>Amendment, but for the Appropriations Bill. 
>Senator Boxer voted against the Bill; Senator 
>Feinstein joined with the majority who voted for 
>it. 
>Why Does US Want To Be
>Unaccountable?
>Why does the US adamantly refuse to participate 
>in the ICC and thus be unaccountable for 
>violations of international law?  The 
>administration claims it does this to protect 
>its servicemen and women from arbitrary 
>prosecution. In reality, the ICC is a court of 
>last resort and only gets involved if the 
>national justice system is unable or unwilling 
>to prosecute, i.e., the suspect is being 
>"shielded from criminal responsibility." 
>According to Dennis Kucinich, Co-Chair of the 
>Congressional Progressive Caucus:  "It is more 
>likely that those whose protection the 
>administrators seek wear not the uniform of our 
>nation, but the business suits of top civilian 
>government officials who wrap themselves in the 
>flag and hide behind the troops while insisting 
>upon impunity for the deadly consequences of 
>their own political decisions." 
>Edward Berger is a retired math professor and 
>lifelong social activist; Madeleine Rose is a 
>social worker and an adjunct faculty member in 
>the Department of Sociology at Sonoma State 
>University.
>1 Ratner, Michael, The Road to Abu Ghraib: Paved 
>with the Legal Opinion of Alberto R. Gonzales, 
>CommonDreams.Org, November 18, 2004.
>2 Statement of the Secretary General to the 
>Inaugural Meeting of Judges, The Hague, March 
>2003.
>Coalition for the International Criminal Court, www.iccnow.org.
>  Kucinich, Dennis, The US Administration and the 
>ICC, CommonDreams.Org, December 9, 2004.
>
>--
>Peter Phillips Ph.D.
>Sociology Department/Project Censored
>Sonoma State University
>1801 East Cotati Ave.
>Rohnert Park, CA 94928
>707-664-2588
>http://www.projectcensored.org/


-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand
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