bully

This took place in the summer, but I've only just seen the following statement - the latest in the US' shabby attempts to scupper the International Criminal Court. Note that they are not even a member of the ICC, were one of only 7 countries to vote against the Rome Statute, and did everything they could to bribe / threaten other countries to sign 'impunity agreements', so US nationals couldn't be handed over to the Court. Here they are preening themseles for having sabotaged discussions on the Crime of Aggression.

Statement by Harold Koh, Legal Advisor U.S. Department of State:

(my emphasis)

'We just returned from a two-week review conference of the International Criminal Court’s Assembly of States Parties in Kampala, Uganda, which we attended as an observer nation.

Ambassador Rapp and I headed an interagency delegation that included representatives from State, Justice, Defense, the Uniformed Services, and the National Security Council. Our delegation worked extremely hard to resume engagement with the court, the states parties, observer nations, and many private organizations involved in international criminal justice. And we engaged in countless hours of conversation in plenary private meetings, et cetera.

The conference completed three main tasks. It endorsed and supported the court’s core work with respect to the traditional crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and highlighted issues of state cooperation, peace and justice, stocktaking, and participation of victims, about which Ambassador Rapp will say more. It also adopted two new crimes, prohibition and non-international armed conflict of certain weapons, the so-called Belgian amendment, and a crime of aggression whose elements will be reconsidered and affirmatively considered after seven more years.

We think that with respect to the two new crimes, the outcome protected our vital interests. The court cannot exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression without a further decision to take place sometime after January 1st, 2017. The prosecutor cannot charge nationals of non-state parties, including U.S. nationals, with a crime of aggression. No U.S. national can be prosecuted for aggression so long as the U.S. remains a non-state party. And if we were to become a state party, we’d still have the option to opt out from having our nationals prosecuted for aggression. So we ensure total protection for our Armed Forces and other U.S. nationals going forward.

Under the terms of the resolution adopted, any crime of aggression couldn’t become operational unless it were affirmatively adopted after another review by consensus or a two-thirds decision of all states parties no earlier than January 1, 2017. It could not be exercised except for acts committed one year after 30 states parties accepted the amendment. And two ways of referring to the crime would be created – one channel that would go through an exclusive Security Council trigger, and a second channel which would go through a prior Security Council review subject to four conditions.

If the Security Council did not make a determination that aggression had occurred, the prosecutor would have to offer a reasonable basis for investigating the crime under a definition that’s been clarified by understandings we suggested. The prosecution would have to get a majority vote of six judges of the court’s pretrial division. The Security Council would still, at that point, have the authority to stop the prosecution with a red light Chapter 7 resolution disapproving the resolution. And as I said, the channel would not apply to nationals of non-state parties or any non-consenting state party who opted out.