USA: UNITED STATES WIN ANOTHER YEAR'S EXEMPTION FROM PROSECUTION FOR ITS PEACEKEEPERS
Record ID:
645902
USA: UNITED STATES WIN ANOTHER YEAR'S EXEMPTION FROM PROSECUTION FOR ITS PEACEKEEPERS
- Title: USA: UNITED STATES WIN ANOTHER YEAR'S EXEMPTION FROM PROSECUTION FOR ITS PEACEKEEPERS
- Date: 12th June 2003
- Summary: (U7) MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (FILE) (REUTERS) U.N PEACEKEEPER ON TANK (U7) SARAJEVO, BOSNIA (FILE) (REUTERS) U.N PEACEKEEPER ON TANK
- Embargoed: 27th June 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: UNITED NATIONS / NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK; UNITED STATES / SARAJEVO AND VARIOUS UNIDENTIFIED LOCATIONS; BOSNIA / MOGADISHU, SOMALIA AND VARIOUS UNIDENTIFIED LOCATIONS; AFRICA
- Country: USA
- Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA8PTIKYQS9ARSD7EBHX9SMVSHM
- Story Text: The United States won another year's exemption from prosecution for its peacekeepers by the new International Criminal Court following a U.N Security Council vote on Thursday. France, Germany and Syria abstained.
Despite 12 votes in favour, France and Germany resisted U.S. warnings to support a U.N. Security Council resolution exempting U.S. peacekeepers from prosecution from the International Criminal Court, thereby rekindling a dispute that began when both countries opposed the war in Iraq.
The council last year voted 15-0 to grant immunity from prosecution to peacekeepers in U.N.-backed missions from countries that had not approved the treaty for the ICC. At that time, the Bush administration threatened to veto all U.N.
peacekeeping missions, one by one.
A total of 90 countries so far have ratified the treaty creating the ICC, the first permanent global criminal tribunal. It was set up to try perpetrators for the world's worst atrocities -- genocide, mass war crimes and systematic human rights abuses and will be in operation in The Hague this year.
The Bush administration rescinded former President Bill Clinton's signature to the ICC treaty, fearing U.S. troops and officials abroad would be the target of frivolous suits.
Deputy U.S ambassador to the U.N, James Cunningham told the Security Council Washington believes the ICC is "fatally flawed".
"The power to deprive a person of his or her freedom is an awesome thing which the American people have entrusted to their government under the rules of our democracy. The International Criminal Court does not operate in the same democratic and constitutional context and, therefore, does not have the right to deprive Americans of their freedom," he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued that the resolution bordered on illegality. The Council, they said, could exempt nations from prosecutions on a specific issue, such as a conflict the body was considering.
Annan also stressed that it would be highly unlikely that peacekeepers would ever end up before the court.
"No peacekeeper, or any other mission personnel, have been anywhere near committing the kind of crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC. Your request, therefore, deals not only with the hypothetical case, but with a highly improbable one," said Annan.
France and Germany argued that the council should not automatically renew the exemption each year, or risk defying the statutes that set up the court. France had voted "yes"
last year; but Germany was not a member of the Council then.
French deputy ambassador Michel Duclos argued, "This renewal might, in fact, make it appear that these exemptions may be permanent, and this perception of permanency can only weaken the court and harm it's authority."
Gunter Pleuger, Germany's ambassador, said Berlin's abstention was a matter of principle, as Germany was in the forefront of organising the court, based on the principles of the Nuremberg Nazi war crime trials at the end of World War Two.
Pleuger told reporters after the meeting, "Germany has been a supporter of the International Criminal Court right from the beginning and, for us, this was a matter of principle. We understand the American concerns, we feel that these concerns are being met already in the statute of the International Criminal Court and therefore, the Security Council resolution should not have been taken because it is not necessary."
Even close ally Britain said the resolution would not be automatically renewed, but said the measure was an "acceptable outcome in what is for the council a difficult situation."
Human rights groups have criticised the U.S's opposition to the court and accuse Washington of pressuring nations into signing bi-lateral agreements giving blanket exemptions that undermine the integrity of the court's statutes. So far, the Bush administration has signed bi-lateral accords with 38 countries.
Richard Dicker, of Human Rights Watch, is accusing the U.S of using "unconscionable tactics."
Dicker said, "Rather than let the substance and logic of the argument persuade, the U.S is resorting to ugly bully boy tactics to obtain these agreements that amount to unlawful contracts when signed by states that have ratified this ICC Treaty."
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which will be based in the Hague in the Netherlands, is being sworn in next week. The court should be operational by the end of the year.
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