US War crimes immunity bid fails
US war crimes immunity bid fails
This is a particularly interesting turn of events. In the wake of the Iraqi prison scandal sympathy for the US in its lone superpowerness, and the continual sniping the biggest kid on the block always gets, has diminished. The US has retracted a bid to consider US forces immune from the International Criminal Court. The reasoning is that US would be subject to frivolous lawsuits in this court and that we're special. We've managed to get this exemption for the past couple of years, but not this year.
There is a certain truth to the reasoning. We ARE a big target. And there was a bit of an international to do about a Belgan party suing certain US military officials for war-crimes in Belgan court, something their courts allow. This proved to be a problem because if those certain military officials landed in Belgium for NATO functions they would be arrested. This is exactly the kind of thing the US was talking about when seeking this exemption.
A permanent war-crimes tribunal is a good thing to have. We've had many such ad-hoc tribunals in the past fifty years since Nurenburg. A permanent court would provide consistancy and experience where it was previously hard to obtain.
This is a particularly interesting turn of events. In the wake of the Iraqi prison scandal sympathy for the US in its lone superpowerness, and the continual sniping the biggest kid on the block always gets, has diminished. The US has retracted a bid to consider US forces immune from the International Criminal Court. The reasoning is that US would be subject to frivolous lawsuits in this court and that we're special. We've managed to get this exemption for the past couple of years, but not this year.
There is a certain truth to the reasoning. We ARE a big target. And there was a bit of an international to do about a Belgan party suing certain US military officials for war-crimes in Belgan court, something their courts allow. This proved to be a problem because if those certain military officials landed in Belgium for NATO functions they would be arrested. This is exactly the kind of thing the US was talking about when seeking this exemption.
A permanent war-crimes tribunal is a good thing to have. We've had many such ad-hoc tribunals in the past fifty years since Nurenburg. A permanent court would provide consistancy and experience where it was previously hard to obtain.
posted by Corwin at 12:10 PM
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