Your comments have no real meaning, other than to perhaps cherry pick and rebut excerpts of the piece. 

I would agree with you that similar criticisms are made against the UN, for being toothless, and weighed down with power politics.... so where do we go from there?  Are you simply stating facts as they are today, or do you want to provide some insight on how to better handle world affairs?

You know full well that the author's critique of the ICC, doesn't imply that this African gentleman isn't worthy of his trial.  This trial only serves to show the implicit biases that exist. Then the author goes the next step, and offers a solution while you seem disinterested in that.  He asks primarily for the United States to stop its blatant hypocrisy. 

Surely you recognize the leadership power that the US has in shaping world policy?  How can we refuse and stonewall international attempts at nuclear disarmament but threaten pressure on N. Korea and Iran?  Laud the results of Nuremberg but deny the precedent's application to criminal U.S. leaders?     

 Basically, we all seem to agree that as you say... "all of these organizations are corrupted by political power in one way or another...They're not out for justice; each country is out for itself."  The question, then, is if the reader is out for objective justice and not just country, then she shouldn't simply observe the fallacies of today's international bodies, and say "Blah".  She must work to demand a change.  The United States' support or disdain for international entities will play an integral part in that change.

That's what this piece is about,... his criticisms may be common, but that makes them no less important.

 

 For a look at what's really going on in Congo see the article on Congo's suffering by Snow and Barouwski

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=9832

  Please check it at the Znet site under the Africa section in case the link doesn't go through.

The Western state & corporate powers and very specific powerful players are very much involved and BEHIND all the suffering. The ICC was always questionable given the grotesque disparities of power and resources but it looks worse and worse. I think the big fight in the US elite is whether to sign on to it with reservations and try to control it in cooperation with other big players or whether to simply reject it altogether w/respect to the US. Without MAJOR changes I don't see it  will be anything more than the usual charade of pro-empire garbage with a shiny "international justice" package.

The following is a good site challenging the ICC in an open letter, quoting under-5 infant mortality figures from UNICEF as 122,000 in occupied Iraq for 2004, and 359,000 for occupied Afghanistan for the same period:

http://india.indymedia.org/en/2006/01/211314.shtml

Here is a site quoting the Unicef report stating infant mortality increased by 10s of thousands per year, compared with 1989, due to the US/UK embargo pursued through the UN, the figure of infant mortality - accepted even by Madeleine Albright - being 500,000+ for under-5s in Iraq from 1991 to 1998:

http://www.iacenter.org/unsit.htm

Here is a child mortality impact that Reagan and Bush snr. liked us to forget, i.e. raised levels of child mortality in Nicaragua as a result of US intervention. Washington showing contempt for the World Court's findings ('the unlawful use of force' by the US):

 http://www.disarm.org/inform/nicaragua/index.html

What I suggest is that the ICC should be forced to sail up the Euphrates on an unarmed boat whispering, 'The horror, the horror!'

Friends: I especially like the neocolonial tone set by the opening paragraph of the second of these commentaries (from the Christian Science Monitor in the States): "It's the latest test of whether African leaders can solve the continent's thorny problems. Will heads of state work together to put one of their own - former Liberian President Charles Taylor - on trial for war crimes?"
 
Surely we cannot accuse the Europeans or the Americans of suffering from an overly-developed guilt-complex.  Much less a sense of shame.
 
By the way: You don't suppose, do you, that Hegel was right, after all, about the "universal spirit and form of the African character"?
 

The characteristic feature of the negroes is that their consciousness has not yet reached an awareness of any substantial objectivity--for example, or God or the law--in which the will of man could participate and in which he could become aware of his own being....Man as we find him in Africa has not progressed beyond his immediate existence....All our observations of African man show him living in a state of savagery and barbarism, and he remains in this state to the present day. The negro is an example of animal man in all his savagery and lawlessness....

............ 

The negroes have...a complete contempt for man, and it is this above all which determines their attitudes towards justice and morality. Their belief in the worthlessness of man goes to almost incredible lengths.... Along with this goes the belief that it is quite normal and permissible to eat human flesh....Cannibalism strikes us as utterly barbarous and revolting....But this is not the case with the negroes, and the eating of human flesh is quite compatible with the African principle; to the sensuous negro, human flesh is purely an object of the senses, like all other flesh....Since human beings are valued so cheaply, it is easily explained why slavery is the basic legal relationship in Africa. The only significant relationship between the negroes and the Europeans has been--and still is--slavery. The negroes see nothing improper about it...Nevertheless, their lot in their own country, where slavery is equally absolute, is almost worse than this; for the basic principle of all slavery is that man is not yet conscious of his freedom, and consequently sinks to the level of a mere object or worthless article. In all the African kingdoms known to the Europeans, this slavery is endemic and accepted as natural....The lesson we can draw from this condition of slavery among the negroes--and the only aspect of it which concerns us here--is the same as that which we have already learnt in the realm of ideas: namely that the state of nature is itself a state of absolute and consistent injustice.

 

Morning Star
March 23, 2006 Thursday
HEADLINE: Feature - Real justice;
Geoff Simons charts some international justice where the findings are based on facts rather than victors' interests
BYLINE: Geoff Simons


The trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein in courts set up by the United States show that political and military leaders only find themselves in the dock when this serves the realpolitik interest of powerful states. And powerful countries, when clearly criminal in their behaviour, are beyond the reach of international law.

This obvious situation has sometimes driven concerned people to set up their own commissions of enquiry, inviting the testimony of witnesses, assessing evidence, creating de facto courts that are independent of impotent domestic and international judiciaries.

In 1966, the peace campaigner Bertrand Russell, then aged 93, called for an international war crimes tribunal on Vietnam to be held because "crimes of great magnitude have been taking place." He wrote of the US aggression against Vietnam: "We have, on American authority, the fact that three million pounds of bombs have been falling daily on North Vietnam, involving tonnages in excess of those used during World War II and the Korean war ... the armies of the United States have been using experimental weapons such as chemicals, gas, napalm, phosphorus, fragmentation weapons and bacteriological devices."

On November 13 1966, the tribunal convened in London to announce its structure and aims. The five US crimes that it aimed to address were the crime of aggression, the use of experimental weapons including gas and chemicals, the bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, sanatoria, schools, dykes, factories and other targets, the torture and mutilation of prisoners - US soldiers were posting home severed parts of tortured Vietnamese - and the crime of genocide.

The Russell tribunal was joined by a host of international figures, including German philosopher Gunther Anders, Turkish parliamentarian Mehmet Ali Aybar, Italian lawyer Lelio Basso, French writer Simone de Beauvoir, former president of Mexico Lazaro Cardenas, Yugoslav writer Vladimir Dedijer, Polish historian Isaac Deutscher, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, French mathematician Laurent Schwartz and British trade unionist Laurence Daly.

Russell's last letters, which were written just before his death in 1970, continued to add impetus to the work of the tribunal.

On August 28 1982, an international commission under the chairmanship of Nobel peace laureate Sean MacBride began its three-month enquiry into the violations of international law by Israel during its invasion of the Lebanon. The commission members included Professor Albert G Milbank of Princeton University, Dublin University senior lecturer in law Kader Asmal, Dublin University lecturer in law Brian Bercusson, Paris University Professor Geraud de la Pradelle and Bonn University Professor Stefan Wild.

It asked a number of questions. Has the government of Israel committed acts of aggression contrary to international law? Have the Israeli armed forces made use of weapons or methods of warfare forbidden by international law? Have Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners been subjected to treatment forbidden by international law? Has there been deliberate or indiscriminate or reckless bombardment of a civilian character - for example, hospitals, schools or other non-military targets? Has there been systematic bombardment or other destruction of towns, cities, villages or refugee camps? Have the Israeli armed forces caused the dispersal, deportation or ill treatment of populations in violation of international law?

Has the government of Israel valid reasons under international law for its invasion of Lebanon or for its actions as an occupying force? To what extent were the Israeli authorities or forces involved, directly or indirectly, in the massacres in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila?

The commission judged that Israel had committed gross violations of international law in every case.

In addition, the commission explored in detail the legal definitions of genocide, after which a majority of the members concluded that the deliberate Israeli "destruction of the national and cultural rights and the identity of the Palestinian people" constituted "a form of genocide."

In February 2006, a "court of the people" was convened in Cairo under the presidency of former Malaysian prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad with the aim of trying George Bush, Tony Blair and Ariel Sharon for war crimes.

The board members included former International Court of Justice judge Dr Fouad Abdulmonem Riad, former Maltese prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Arab Lawyers' Union general secretary Ibrahim El-Semlaly, Arab Lawyers' Union president Sameh Ashour, former president of the committee of lawyers' associations in Morocco Abdulrahman bin Amro and Mohamed Waleed Al-Tesh, head of the Syrian bar association.

The court first considered the charges against Bush and Blair, with particular reference to Article 2 of the UN charter.

"All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any manner inconsistent with the purpose of the United Nations."

In addition, attention was given to the Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions. The court noted that the "shock and awe" tactic of indiscriminate bombardment of cities, towns, villages, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, historical sites and infrastructure resulted in "wanton destruction and the mass murder of civilians" - so constituting war crimes.

The reducing of vast swathes of Iraq to wastelands, an environmental catastrophe involving wanton acts of destruction, constituted crimes against humanity.

Then the charges against Sharon were considered with reference to the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Resolutions and the frequent demands made by the UN security council.

It is noted that the history of Sharon is that of a war criminal, as shown by the court consideration of the 1953 massacre in the West Bank village of Qibya, the 1982 massacres in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps and the brutal 2002 invasions of Ramallah, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Jenin and Nablus. It is demonstrated that Sharon's acts fall within the realm of Article II, paragraph C of the UN genocide convention, which stipulates that acts of genocide include "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

The court found the three defendants - Bush, Blair and Sharon - guilty of war crimes and issued a final directive. It read: "Although this court has no power to enforce any sentence on the defendants, it has the unquestionable right to place the three defendants on the list of war criminals of the past such as Hitler and others.

"You three will be among those listed in the Hall of Infamy for all posterity.

"We recommend that right-minded people all over the world shun you and have no dealings with you."

These three judicial examples show how established domestic and international courts might operate and judge if justice guided by facts and humanity were the sole guiding principle.

Christian Science Monitor
March 23, 2006, Thursday
SECTION: WORLD; Pg. 6
HEADLINE: African leaders face key tests on justice
BYLINE: Claire Soares Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
DATELINE: DAKAR, SENEGAL
HIGHLIGHT:
Liberia's President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Washington this week asked for Charles Taylor to be tried for war crimes.

It's the latest test of whether African leaders can solve the continent's thorny problems. Will heads of state work together to put one of their own - former Liberian President Charles Taylor - on trial for war crimes?

Although Mr. Taylor stoked a 14-year civil war at home, it is in neighboring Sierra Leone that he is wanted on 17 counts of crimes against humanity for supporting rebels in return for diamonds during a decade-long conflict that killed some 50,000 people.

The notorious warlord has been holed up in Nigeria since August 2003, and for months Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo promised he would end Taylor's exile if an elected Liberian government asked. But when new Liberia President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on Friday formally requested that Taylor be handed over to the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone, Mr. Obasanjo balked, saying he must talk to other African leaders.

"It's difficult to see why regional leaders need to be consulted," says Desmond de Silva, the chief prosecutor at the Sierra Leone Special Court, which has been after Taylor for three years.

Optimists see Obasanjo's change of course as an attempt to guarantee political cover for a decision that will not be universally popular among fellow African heads of state. Pessimists fear it's a stalling tactic to maintain a charade of bringing Taylor to justice while allowing him to slip through the net.

"We are pessimistic. This is just a ploy to delay," says Sulaiman Jabati of the Coalition for Justice and Accountability in Sierra Leone. "They will not want to set a standard that they might fall prey to tomorrow."

Corinne Dufka, the West Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch agrees: "Many sitting and former heads of state have blood on their hands or have been accused of massive corruption and it could be there are concerns about setting a precedent."

A test for African justice

The court in Sierra Leone that indicted Taylor has a limited time frame, and when the last of its other war-crimes trials wraps up, expected to be sometime in 2007 according to court officials, it would be difficult to justify keeping it running.

So now, observers say, the onus is squarely on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a 15-nation regional body, and the continent-wide African Union (AU) to prove they can do what they have so often requested: handle their own affairs without Western interference.

With the continent jointly clamoring for a permanent UN Security Council seat for a to-be-determined African nation, justice is up there on the scorecard along with human rights, peace and security, freedom of the press, anti-corruption, and good governance.

"[African leaders'] commitment to justice and fighting impunity is now being tested," says Ms. Dufka. "They cannot pass up the opportunity to ensure justice for thousands of Africans."

Senior ECOWAS sources say the Taylor issue would be discussed by regional heads of state and added to the group's agenda for next month's extraordinary meeting.

President Johnson-Sirleaf, however, added pressure on Tuesday when she reiterated her call for Taylor's transferral after a meeting with President Bush in the White House. "We think [African leaders] now must - since we've given the word that we want it brought to closure - take the decision on the next step to take it to the court," she said.

The other case: 'Africa's Pinochet'

The AU has already been asked once this year to decide on a request for a former head of state to stand trial. That concerned Hissene Habre, the one-time ruler of Chad whose government is accused of 40,000 political killings and 200,000 cases of torture, earning him the nickname "Africa's Pinochet."

In November, Senegal, where Mr. Habre has lived for the past 15 years, referred an extradition request from Belgium to the AU, which in January appointed a committee to consider the case. The European Parliament last week called on Senegal to bring Habre to trial or extradite him to Belgium.

Some observers note that the sensitivities raised in the Habre case - namely the possibility of a European country, and former colonial ruler, meting out justice in Africa - are not an issue when it comes to Taylor.

If African leaders were to approve Taylor's extradition, he would be tried in the UN-backed Special Court - on African soil, with some African judges on the bench. Thus, many analysts say, it comes down to the simple question of whether the immunity of top leaders that has long stunted democratic growth on the continent will again triumph over accountability.

Taylor's advisers have cried conspiracy and maintain that transferring the ex-leader from Nigeria risks destabilizing both Liberia, where the former warlord still has thousands of supporters and his ex-wife is now a senator, and Sierra Leone, where the last UN peacekeepers have now left.

Mr. De Silva concedes the possibility that Nigeria may only consent to Taylor leaving if he is tried in a more neutral atmosphere, in which case the Special Court could sit at The Hague.

But putting Taylor in the dock one way or the other would be a judicial coup for the Sierra Leone prosecutors, whose other high-profile defendant, rebel leader Foday Sankoh, died in custody.

"With Milosevic no longer around, if Taylor is brought to court, he could be the first head of state in history to have been indicted in office and have his trial completed," de Silva says.

At the moment, the prosecutor believes that Obasanjo's decision to consult with African leaders stems from not wanting to shoulder the burden alone. "But there will come a point, if things are delayed too long, that an ulterior motive will become apparent."

 

Interesting. Organizations like this will often deliberately start by going after a white guy. The idea is to throw a sop to the left and forestall the usual knee-jerk accusations or implications of racism. Of course, that approach is more common in America, so it's perhaps understandable that the ICC didn't think to do it. "How deeply into the neocolonial era...must we have descended, when something like the ICC can ply its trade against black Africans, and this is regarded as proof of the advancement of law, justice, and order on a planetary scale?" What could this possibly mean? Surely you're not implying that black Africans should be exempt from the ICC's jurisdiction. What if this guy really committed heinous crimes? Why shouldn't they put him on trial if they have evidence against him? The Court may indeed be unlikely to go after European whites, but that doesn't mean that it's bad for it to go after this particular person. Moreover, I'm not sure I care about the irony of a picture or the putative "extenuating circumstances" for the alleged recruitment of kids to fight wars. This person's alleged victims--who are presumably also black Africans--deserve justice too, not polemics. And of course all of these organizations are corrupted by political power in one way or another. Only the most delusional UNophiles ever thought that it would be otherwise. The same criticism applies to just about everything the UN does, including actions in the Security Council, Human Rights committee, and General Assembly. They're not out for justice; each country is out for itself. David's criticism is an echo of the common criticisms of the UN that appear both on the left and the right.

Your article concerning the ICC and the US's failure to endorse a positive step in putting those on trial who are accused of crimes motivated by political, economic or social agendas is quite harrowing, however, unfortunately not surprising.

Although the US signed up to the Rome Statut under Clinton, the Bush administration has proceded to "un-sign" it. According to Rumsfeld, the ICC undermines "the independence and flexibility that America needs to defend our national interests around the world" (6th May 2002). As Philippe Sands QC asks in his book "Lawless World", the flexibility to do what? Committ crimes? Assist those committing crimes?

Under the "Hague Invasion Act" of 2002, the US President has the authority to do all he can in obtaining the release of US nationals being held by the ICC. It also prohibits US troops being involved in UN peace-keeping missions unless they recieve immunity from prosecution by the ICC. The US now has a multitude of bilateral agreements with countries party to the ICC, that no US nationals be detained on terrirtory by those countries signed up to the ICC...not only undermining the Court as a whole, but also the agreements to which those who signed up to the ICC. Those countries which adhere to the International rules but have refused to sign bilateral agreements with the US have seen a halving of military aid and economic aid(notably in the Carribean region, where it has affected the authorities ability to curtail drug-trafficking).

Yet, the Bush Administration does not pause to think about the hypocracy it committs by endorsing the ICC procedings against Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor. Why do one set of rules apply to every other national, but not a US one? Especially, when what they are being criminally charged with are serious offences, against humanity...surely the US Constitution does not deplore criminals being tried, and if convicted, sentenced. If American policy is altruistic then why should her plociy makers be afraid to sign up to the Rome Statut?

As for UK complicity in the maintenance of the "special relationship", this is not surprising. David Blunckett, the then Home Secretary, (now disgraced and hounded from office) set up bilateral agreements with John Ashcroft. All this in light of the UK's Government endorsement of the treaty and its "complimentarity" (Sands, page 67) in safeguarding citizens and trooops in active duty.

America, whether she likes it or not, sets the standards for international behaviour through her economic and military power (also, her Governments statements claiming that the US is a "beacon of light" in a sea of darkness); the ability to enforce axiomatic universals (sanctity of human rights/life) successfully could be acheived (in large part) if she did not undermine conventions and treaties which protect these truisms. Unfortunately, when America refuses to adopt such high principles and subject her people to the same rights as everyone else, then it only adds fuel to an already insatiable fire of animosity and mistrust of US policy. The US must sign up to the ICC, adhere to past treaties and future ones, along with all other countries, to engage in the prevention of political, economic and militaristic atrocities. As Philippe Sands quotes at the begiining of his book:

"Les lois sont des toiles d'araignees a travers lesquelles passent les grosses mouches et ou restes les petites." (Laws, like the spider's webs, catch the small flies and let the large ones go free) Honore de Balzac

There needs to be accountability of all countries' actions. The ICC provides an avenue for this.

ps. Philippe Sands book offers a whole range of topics and treaties with the West's hypocracy and refusal to practice what they preach. Direct examples given above are taken from this source.