Clinton has signed us up for the International Criminal Court. If the treaty is approved by Congress, we Americans can be deprived of our constitutional rights. Do you think that we should make that sacrifice?
Exactly which constitutional rights would this treaty deprive us of?
Barbitu8, could you please explain exactly what this “International Criminal Court” is and how it works?
US citizens may be subject to trial before an international tribunal. It may arise that the trial is for political reasons. We have certain safeguards under our Constitution as to rights of defendants: 5th amendment, right to a trial by peers, due process, etc. In an international tribunal those rights may not be protected.
The idea of the tribunal is to try people who may be guilty of war crimes as they arise, similar to the Nuremberg trials, but proactive rather than reactive.
Would this International Criminal Court try Americans for cases arising within the United States? I assume not, but I just want to verify that some guy can’t haul the LAPD up before the ICC for police brutality.
That leaves Americans being tried before the ICC for actions that take place outside the U.S.; i.e., an American soldier is on trial for war crimes for something he did while serving with (let’s say) the UN Peacekeeping Forces in the South of France. (The langue d’oïl “ethnically cleansing” the langue d’oc, or some damn thing.) I don’t see why this would be a problem. If I, acting purely in a purely private and individual capacity, went over to France and committed rape and pillage, I’d be tried in a French court; the fact that French courts don’t follow precisely the same rules regarding the “presumption of innocence” that American courts do would be just too bad. The American consulate would be as helpful as they could in making sure that my legal rights under French law were being respected, but no one would launch any air strikes on Marseilles or anything. Similarly, U.S. soldiers serving overseas who commit crimes against the local populace are tried in Japanese or Korean or German courts; I think we have bilaterally negotiated agreements in some cases as to exactly when U.S. servicemen will be turned over to local custody (after indictment or conviction or whatever).
I guess the biggest questions would be about the possibility of having, say, the President of the United States (or anyone in the U.S. chain of command) being extradited from this country to stand trial before the ICC because, without leaving the U.S., they allegedly gave orders for our boys on the Côte d’Azur to commit rape and pillage. The U.S. does extradite citizens to be tried by foreign countries, though, doesn’t it? And that doesn’t necessarily violate an American’s constitutional rights. At any rate, I don’t really see how we can get all high and mighty about Slobo and Saddam and all those other bad people and then turn around and exempt ourselves from the rules. We would hardly find it acceptable if Iraq said they were going to try Saddam Hussein before an Iraqi court for his war crimes in the invasion of Kuwait, since this would pretty much consist of Saddam saying “I find myself ‘not guilty’. Next case!”
I realize that the American justice system isn’t “morally equivalent” to that of a country like Iraq, and American courts might well actually find an American politician guilty. But we still can’t make one set of rules for ourselves and another set for everyone else.
Of course, IANAL.
Not quite true. The signing was a tactical play. Under the treaty rules, non-signatories by X date had no say in modifications of the treaty. Clinton likes the idea, but doesn’t like the treaty as it stands. So he signed. He is not sending it to the Senate for ratification, and has recommended Bush not do so either (Bush has agreed).
As for the court idea itself, I agree with MEBuckner
Sua
I don’t see how the court couldn’t have jurisdiction over Americans in America. If they can’t prosecute crimes committed in America, then where does a crime have to be committed?
Unless this only effects international waters, then it is a treaty that seems to overrule all national courts across the globe. This is much different than extradition. Extradition usually covers cases where a person was in a particular country and broke their laws and then left. When you walk into another country, you take the responsibility upon yourself to obey their laws. This court is going to set laws independent of countries and then overlay their law on the rest of the world.
My personal and well thought out opinion of this Court is that it sucks:)
Well, would it have jurisdiction over crimes committed by Americans in America against other Americans?
Or would it only have jurisdiction:
a) over crimes committed by Americans, against foreigners, in other countries and
b) over conspiracies by Americans in America to commit crimes against foreigners in other countries (i.e., ordering our troops abroad to ethnically cleanse Belgium or something like that)?
I don’t know how it would play out if North Dakota tried to secede and the U.S. government responded by rounding up everyone in Bismarck and having them shot. If that could wind up in the ICC, then it’s hard to say how we could guarantee that in theory no politically motivated cases would wind up there along the lines of “Leonard Peltier is a political prisoner” or “the LAPD is an imperialist occupation force”, although in practice the ICC might just throw stuff like that out–it would depend on the make up the court and what rules it uses and so on. I still haven’t seen any hard info on just what the ICC would have jurisdiction over.
Also–if I, acting in a purely private and individual capacity in my role as head of an international crime syndicate, ordering one of my boys to whack some guy in Marseilles, then of course the triggerman would be tried in a French court under French law, but could I, as a chocolate kingpin or whatever, be successfully extradited from the U.S. by French prosecutors to stand trial under French law?
The ICC is a significant threat to the basic constitutional protections that the Constitution and our common law system of jurisprudence provide. Some examples (taken from http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j010301.html)
This includes Islamic law (and we all know how fair and equitable that can be) as well as the Chinese no-trial system…not even mentioning the inherent political correctness there!
In other words…no real evidence is required to detain someone.
…the procedures behind the issue of said warrant aren’t open to question.
A clear infringment of national soverignity!!!
A few others that are self-explanitory
and perhaps the most frightening of all
Freedom…you are most certainly correct…be afraid…be VERY afraid!!!
No. The U.S. never extradites American citizens.
And here all this time everyone was getting all worked up about Janet Reno, when it was Madeleine Albright who had the power to send you off to some foreign hoosegow.
How can we be deprived of our constitutional rights? A treaty does not automatically become American law so far as I know.
Marc
Rugbyman- that link doesn’t. And, rather than actually quoeing the relevant sections, it sounds like a wierd right wing conspiracy/militia groups interpretation of those laws. Next, altho a RATIFIED treaty is the second highest law in the land, it cannot overide the US Constitution. Only a Constitutional admenment can do that. So, even if ratified- which is it not, and won’t be- a treaty cannot override the US Constitution- in this nation. A treaty which is not ratified has some limited use- but only if on soft, absorbant paper.
At least Bush will have some say in the fine-tuning of the treaty, so if what RugbyMan says is true, hopefully Bush can convince them to drop the scary parts.
The U.S. Constitution does not necessarily apply to foreigners in foreign countries.
US ratification the ICC statute is moot. Once sixty nations ratify it, as easily expected, it is binding on the USA anyway. Even if the USA were not to ratify, and to vigorously protest the statute, from an international perspective it would still be bound.
Is there a loss of soverign power by individual states? Of course there is to a limited degree, just as with all international law.
Is there anything new about the USA being subject to international law courts? Nope. The USA has been subject to the International Court of Justice for many years with no problems. Yes there are nuisance suits, such as Yugoslavia going after the allies, but these are dealt with to no great effect. On the plus side, the ICJ has helped deal with some otherwise nasty disputes.
So what is different about the International Criminal Court? It permits individuals to be prosecuted, not just states. The existing International Court of Justice is pretty much a state v. state court (although some ethnic minorities claiming national status are pushing for the ICJ to accept jurisdiction on their human rights claims). The proposed ICC will try individuals.
Will this affect individual’s existing rights? Yes. Genocidal individuals who are not properly tried by their own states will risk being prosecuted before the ICC. In reality, this means that citizens of first world nations have nothing to fear, for their nations already have fully functioning legal systems. People in third world tin pot dictatorships will receive protection, for if their legal systems are not able to deal with dictators, war lords and drug lords who are committing genocide, then the ICC will assume jurisdiction. It will be easier for first world nations to go in and deal with genocidal individuals in juristic backwaters.
How is this different from previous international war crimes prosecutions? So far the courts have been convened on an ad hoc basis. What ratification of the statute will do is make the court permanent.
Does the USA have to worry about its leaders being hauled off to jail? Of course not. This is just plain silly. Although theoretically the possibility would exist, in reality it would not happen due to the stable US court system, and ultimately by the power of the USA. Do genocidal despots have to worry? Yup. That’s what it is all about. It provides a legal basis for what the US and other first world nations have been doing for years.
Here is the ICC statute:
http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/contents.htm
I suggest that before posting opinions on it (and obviously we will have varying opinions), folks read it through carefully. It is not very long.
Gotta love those French. Signed up with the reservation that it does not apply to them.
That’s not my understanding. I am not an American lawyer, and so would defer to someone with knowledge in the area, but the following provision of the US Code doesn’t seem to limit extradition to non-Americans.
I would read the section as saying that the U.S. can enter into treaties with other nations which authorise the extradition of U.S. citizens, and even if the U.S. has not agreed in the treaty with a particular country to extradite citizens, it can do so in specific cases.
I would imagine that the reason for this approach is that extradition treaties are normally based on reciprocity, with each country agreeing that they will extradite to each other on exactly the same rules. There are some countries with constitutional provisions barring the extradition of their citizens (I believe Germany is one such country), so I would imagine that the U.S. would make it a condition of the treaty with such countries that the U.S. is not required to extradite U.S. citizens.
However, §3196 appears to give the U.S. government the statutory authority to extradite a U.S. citizen even if not required to do so under the treaty. That gives the federal government discretion to do so on a case-by-case basis.
You may be thinking of § 3181(b), which provides:
§ 3181 seems to authorise the U.S. to extradite nationals of another country who are in the U.S., even if there is no extradition treaty with the requesting nation, if the foreign nationals are charged with violence against U.S. nationals in that foreign country. However, U.S. nationals cannot be extradited on this basis - there must be a treaty in place for U.S. nationals to be extradited.
So if the US were not to ratify, and then later the security council were to vote to refer a US person for prosecution, would the US security council veto be valid, or would it be conflicted out? Also, seeing as such a matter most probably would only come about if the US judicial system had collapsed, for example under a coup, could the seat at the security counsel itself be ordered vacated by the UN?