The evil of the ICC (International Criminal Court)

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionBy James Washington Elmore International Criminal Court The basis for nation-states existence is that they are a sovereign entity that is not answerable to any other nation-state in their internal affairs, short of going to war with each other and then the victor can thus dictate the terms of the defeated nation’s sovereignty. This status of a nation-state’s sovereignty over its territory and people has existed since the origin of governments and has been a big part of the package under which we make our laws as we see fit.  Under this concept it is no other countries business unless they can defeat us in war. In the twentieth century the world saw the need and set the ground work for creation of the International Criminal Court, located in The Hague, Netherlands. This Court was created by what is known as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. To date over 100 nations have joined the treaty. Those nations are most of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and most of the Nation-States in South America. The International Criminal Court grew out of the need for a court that could have international jurisdiction after the conflagration caused by World War II. It is based on the need to adjudicate genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression by a Nation-State. The road to hell is paved with good intentions As is often stated “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, such is the case with the International Criminal Court. By joining an international tribune like the ICC a nation turns it sovereignty over to a collective which can try its citizens and leaders for crimes that may not be covered by statute in his native land or if the ICC thought that justice has not been served.  In other words it is a form of double jeopardy. Legal concepts have evolved in many nations based on reason, freedom, human rights and property protections. Yet the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks to be the one location where the ultimate justice will be dispensed. No justice could exist in any country that would not be subject to scrutiny by the ICC. It would be the court of last resort for the world and would supersede all legal basis established in any sovereign nation. Article 20 The most damning article in the Treaty of Rome is Article 20 which reads as follows:

Article 20 Ne bis in idem 1. Except as provided in this Statute, no person shall be tried before the Court with respect to conduct which formed the basis of crimes for which the person has been convicted or acquitted by the Court. 2. No person shall be tried by another court for a crime referred to in article 5 for which that person has already been convicted or acquitted by the Court. 3. No person who has been tried by another court for conduct also proscribed under article 6, 7, or 8 shall be tried by the Court with respect to the same conduct unless the proceedings in the other court: (a) Were for the purpose of shielding the person concerned from criminal responsibility for crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court; or (b) Otherwise were not conducted independently or impartially in accordance with the norms of due process recognized by international law and were conducted in a manner which, in the circumstances, was inconsistent with an intent to bring the person concerned to justice.

See the full text of the legal document at Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

By extension the ICC, if it feels justice has not been served in the native country, can have the right to “re-try” any case in which they feel justice was not found.  Plus the trial will be based on ICC Statutes instead of one's native country's legal code.  This is a very broad brush and basically takes away any signatory nation’s right to sovereignty over its legal system, citizens or leaders. What this boils down to is that a person living in the U.S. has the full right to speak what he thinks the truth is about Islam because the U.S. has the worlds most secure freedom of speech; however, the ICC’s view of free speech is based on the European model which does not protect free speech to the same degree that U.S. law does. So if an American damned Islam in publications, movies, cartoons etc. and those speeches lead to mayhem on the streets resulting in deaths, he would not be prosecuted under U.S. law; however, the ICC could well see that their version of justice was not served and force double jeopardy on that person by retrying him under ICC statutes. An even more direct threat is that an American leader, such as George W. Bush, could be charged with “war of aggression” in Iraq and Afghanistan. No U.S. court would ever charge him with such as crime because he followed the U.S. law in going into those two wars. But the ICC could use Article 20, section 3 (a) as justification for such a prosecution because they would see that U.S. law shielded President Bush from criminal prosecution.

Of course detractors will point out that the ICC cannot interfere with Nation-States law; however, when you read Article 20, part 3, (a) & (b) it becomes quite possible that if the ICC views the native country judgment less than perfect they have the full right to retry the individual or group.  This basically rules the native country judiciary incompetent and subject to the discretions of the ICC.

This is the main reason that the U.S. has not ratified the Rome Statute, with the following exception:

United States of America Reservation: "(a) pursuant to article 20 (2) of the Convention, the United States of America declares that it does not consider itself bound by Article 20 (1) of the Convention; and (b) the United States of America reserves the right specifically to agree in a particular case to follow the procedure in Article 20 (1) of the Convention or any other procedure for arbitration." Already citizens of Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom could be prosecuted under the ICC for their participation in those wars. In fact as of February 2006 the ICC has received over 200 complaints wanting prosecution under ICC law against these countries. This is a ticking time bomb for total loss of sovereignty to many countries legal systems. Does an American, Canadian or Australian citizen, who goes to war for their country, have to face double jeopardy at the hands of the ICC? Prime Ministers Howard and Blair could face charges for anything that happened in Iraq.  Additionally, we have complaints against Israel for genocide of Palestinians. How long do you think that Israel could protect their leaders and soldiers under the logos of the ICC? One can guess quite accurately where those more than 200 complaints came from. Can’t we? They all came from Islam dominated countries and from the radical left. Do citizens of the democratic and free countries ever want to place their fate in the hands of the ICC? Do any free countries have the right to give up legal protections for their citizens to a foreign, international bureaucracy that does not have their best interest at heart?

Another big question is: who ends up dispensing justice from the ICC? Will interests totally foreign to freedom come to the fore and deny us of any semblance of our hard-won freedoms? (After all many folks are intimidated and prosecuted for blasphemy in Europe under blasphemy laws that take precedence over free speech, just ask Geert Wilder about free speech in Britain.) How would the ICC look at blasphemy laws? Would they take the American model and allow free speech or apply the European model where blasphemy laws would actually apply.  Or would they force blasphemy laws against all people like they would like to do against say the Americans and the Dutch?

We have all witnessed what happens when World organizations are set up; the rule of the majority always wins out over justice. Take for instance the United Nations General Assembly which always votes against the U.S. and Israel no matter what the subject is. Reason never enters the equation; it is just a fact that if Israel and the U.S. are for something the General Assembly will be against it. Will the ICC be any different? I doubt it, because it is very nice to have the majority yelling your praises instead of screaming their indignity. Another big concern that I have is just how long will it take for the influence of sharia law to creep into the ICC? The pressure is there to make all people included in this world judiciary.  To hell with reason or responsibility, let us just include these poor underrepresented folks. Others can play the same game And if Europe can establish the ICC why couldn’t other interests set up a similar international court in their part of the world? For instance the Islamic countries have noticed the ICC and consideration is being given to a similar court (like a sharia compliant International Criminal Court) to apply to their section of the world, for instance we have this from MISNA:

INTERNATIONAL 13/3/2009 11.18 AN ARAB CRIMINAL COURT TO TRY ‘WORLD POWERS’?

Justice and Human Rights, Standard

Activists and members of various Egyptian political parties proposed the creation of an “Arab and Islamic criminal court” to prosecute the crimes committed by world “powers”, starting from US and Israeli.

The proposal was made at a seminar held at the media union headquarter in Cairo, after which a statement was released expressing support to Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir, who faces an arrest warrant issued last week by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in the Darfur region.

“The Arab criminal court could prosecute the crimes committed against the Palestinians by the Israeli leaders and those committed against the people of Iraq by the former US administration of George W. Bush”, said Mustafa Moussa, head of the ‘Al Ghad’ party (Tomorrow), specifying that a petition will be presented to the Egyptian parliament to promote the initiative.

Moussa added that the court will not begin works immediately, stressing the urgency to “draw up an updated report on the crimes committed in Arab nations by foreign governments”. The ‘Al Ghad’ leader, spokesperson of the initiative, explained that “in case of indictment, the accused should face arrest on entering the territory or air space of any Arab nations”.

The ICC decision against al Bashir, taken based on charges filed by the court’s chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, was widely criticised by Arab and African nations that denounced the “double standards” of the international court in judging African and Arab political leaders, ignoring the crimes committed by the world “powers” in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestinian Occupied Territories.

Can one understand these implications? The world is not some monolithic instrument like the EU would like. Those that stand to be impacted the most by the ICC do not want hedgemony from the Western World. They will seek to get even. And instead of using Western concepts of law they may well want to impose their sharia law concepts on anyone traveling through or involved in business in their part of the world.

To extrapolate the end game on these efforts is that each group will end up with its own ICC, one for Russia and China, one for the Islamic world and one for the free world.  The resulting end of all this work being done on ICC is the same as what we had prior to the formation of the ICC: legal limbo. No responsible Nation-State should be willing to give away the rights of their citizens and leaders to the ICC.  If the Islamic countries establish such a court how could world leaders travel?  If Russia and China develop a similar court how could world leaders travel to that portion of the world?  Any country that they enter could arrest them and put them on trial for "war crimes". Limits on freedom In addition to the limits on freedoms, the ICC would really change the American concepts of freedom. Americans are granted a few basic legal rights. They are granted freedoms based on the U.S. Constitution, like total freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the right to habeas corpus (protection against illegal detention), the right to a trial by jury, the right to protect yourself from self-incrimination. Yet if the U.S. agrees to the ICC many of those rights will go away. There is no protection under the ICC for a trial by jury where the defendant faces a jury of their piers. Or the right of a defendant to face his accuser.  So why give our rights away? The part of the ICC concept dealing with being tried by a jury of you piers really bothers me because a jury of my piers sure as hell does not mean a bunch of Judges from the Netherlands, France, Japan or Germany. Those people do not share my values, my background or the American concept of justice. Plus they would have the authority under Article 20 to decide that my trial in the U.S., or the total lack of a trial, was not fair so they could with the stroke of the pen rule my Constitutional rights guaranteed me by the U.S. Constitution as null and void and try me in Europe. On the other hand, a British subject has similar rights to a trial by jury; however, with Britain being a signatory to the ICC the government of Britain has placed its citizens in a double jeopardy situation because the ICC would have the right to re-try an exonerated British citizen again under the laws of the ICC. Who supports the ICC Here is a world map of the countries that have bought into the flawed concept of the ICC: And here is who is paying for the ICC. One can instantly glean from these two pictures who is pulling the strings to get the ICC up and running. Now that you have seen who is pushing for it go back and read a little history of how forward-looking those countries have been in establishing true justice. Germany and Japan’s track records are horrendous. Most of South America has never created any truly just judicial system. But the real target of the ICC is the first and only forward looking judicial system ever established in the World and that was the U.S. So the ICC is just another way that smaller powers, with no track record of good judicial first steps, can increase their power by forcing their views of justice on the larger powers that they desire to control. The U.S. fought two wars with England to avoid European justice, but now Europe tries to come through the back door to impose their views of Justice on the American system through the ICC. So a large section of the world has given up their sovereignty to the ICC. By taking this effort to its extreme we (all citizens of the world) would end up with an international legal system, that because of the vast compromises that would have to be made, that would give no person or nation real justice, just collective ICC justice. Does any one think that an Islamic country would ever sign up for the ICC without significant / quantum changes in the ICC’s statutes? What world power would ever be willing to give up sovereignty to the EU vision of ICC justice? The EU cannot even write a Constitution that its citizens will accept, yet they want the world to defer to them to write our laws? NEVER! So now we must realize that before we can get the world to ascribe to such a treaty what would the compromises be?  Can you imagine how our human rights would look like if we came up with Statutes that the Islamic nations of the world would sign off on?  I don't think that I would want to live under that law. Yet we free people would love to have some International system of law set up that would protect the people of the world from genocide such as is now happening in Darfur; however, giving up all of our freedoms in the process is not the answer.

World wide consensus will never give us good laws. Our laws still need to be made in our native countries were they can be amended as needed, where the experiment in a good judicial system can continue to be improved. We do not need one set of law that takes precedent over reason and justice.