Obama’s support of the international criminal court: Worrisome

Typically looking through a narrow slit in the perennially short-sighted prism of American interests, Nino Saviano writes for The Hill's Congress Blog:

The recent UN Security Council Resolution authorizing the International Criminal Court to investigate Libya’s Gadhafi boasted unprecedented U.S. support for such a potential prosecution. The United States is not a signatory to the ICC treaty. In a similar vote in the past – when the Security Council referred Sudan’s Al-Bashir to the ICC – the United States abstained. That was during the administration of President George W. Bush.

President Obama’s positive support of ICC action in the Security Council on February 26 can have very important ramifications for the United States in terms of its standing and credibility within the world community. It could possibly even carry implications for our country’s national sovereignty.

The United States rejected the ICC treaty for reasons of vital national security interests. Given our significant military involvement overseas, the Pentagon would never want to place its soldiers at the mercy of a potential political witch hunt by ICC prosecutors. It is to this effect that the Obama administration included a clause in the recent resolution exempting U.S. military in the Libya case – should they be drawn into the conflict there.

Such a clause, however, carries no absolute guarantee that no attempt would be made to draw the U.S. military, or any of its affiliates (i.e. contractors) into some legal or prosecutorial battle. The complexities of military action are too wide and deep for such a guarantee – a type of assurance that has never been tested before in international law.

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