HRW: "U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies"
BBSNews - 2003-07-01 -- HRW: New York, July 1, 2003 - With the expiration of its July 1 deadline to cut
off military aid to states supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC),
the Bush administration should end its ill-conceived campaign to weaken the
court, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell.
The American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA) revokes military assistance
to countries that have ratified the ICC unless they conclude a separate
bilateral agreement with the United States by July 1, agreeing never to hand
over U.S. personnel to the ICC.
Despite a yearlong campaign by the U.S. diplomatic corps, only about 48
countries have signed such agreements so far, the majority of them small and
poor countries that have not ratified the ICC treaty anyway and therefore have
no obligation to transfer U.S. personnel to the court.
"U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies," said Richard
Dicker, director of the International Justice program at Human Rights Watch.
"The U.S. campaign has not succeeded in undermining global support for the
court. But it has succeeded in making the U.S. government look foolish and
mean-spirited."
The letter cites several examples of U.S. hardball tactics:
* U.S. Ambassador Richard Blankenship publicly warned the Bahamas that if it
did not support the U.S. position on the ICC, a significant amount of U.S. aid
would be withheld, including funds for paving and lighting an airport runway.
* An Assistant Secretary of State informed foreign ministers of Caribbean
states that they would lose the benefits for hurricane relief and rural
dentistry and veterinary programs if their governments did not sign.
"U.S. officials are engaged in a worldwide campaign pressing small, vulnerable
and often fragile democratic governments," said the Human Rights Watch letter,
signed by executive director Kenneth Roth. "Because most ICC member states are
democracies with a relatively strong commitment to the rule of law, the
threatened aid cutoffs represent a sanction primarily targeting states that
abide by democratic values."
The exact number of countries that have signed bilateral immunity agreements
is unclear, since some of the agreements are "secret." But at least 38 of them
are classified as "less developed" or "least developed" countries by the
United Nations Development Program index.
Most of the ICC's 18 judges come from countries closely allied with the United
States. Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine national who was most recently the
Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies at Harvard Law
School, has recently been sworn in as the court's Chief Prosecutor.
"No one really believes that Moreno Ocampo is likely to indulge in unwarranted
prosecutions of American citizens," said Dicker. "It's really time for the
Bush administration to wake up from its own nightmarish delirium."
To read the Human Rights Watch letter, please see:
http://hrw.org/press/2003/06/usa063003ltr.htm
For more information on the International Criminal Court, please see:
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/
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The preceding report was provided to BBSNews by the Human Rights Watch International (HRW).
Michael Hess is the Editor of BBSNews in Charlotte, NC. Write to the editor here. Not all submissions are published. Or visit the completely new BBSNews Blog and Forum on our front page - Please Participate in BBSNews!
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