The Hindu : Bush Govt. move weakens court

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 02, 2002

International

International

Bush Govt. move weakens court

By Vaiju Naravane

Paris July 1. A four-member skeleton staff opened the newly-constituted International Criminal Court in makeshift offices at The Hague on Monday morning.

Human rights violators, torturers and bloody dictators will now, hopefully, no longer be able to operate with impunity. As of today, those responsible for crimes "that defy the imagination and shock human conscience'' are liable for prosecution by the court.

With the backing of 74 countries and fierce opposition from the U.S., the court will have the authority to prosecute individuals, not states, for war crimes anywhere in the world. Former dictators like Chile's General Pinochet or Argentina's General Videla can, however, breathe easy since the court does not have the power to try offences committed before July 1, 2002.

William Pace, who heads the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, a grouping of over 1,000 global organisations from civil society, described the court as "the greatest institution of peace ever created.''

Jurists and NGOs have hailed the formation of the court as a major step in the respect and preservation of human rights. The court was formally constituted through an international treaty signed in Rome in July 1998 by 139 states. However, strong opposition from the U.S. already compromised the fledgling court's functioning.

On Sunday, Washington sought exemption from possible war crimes prosecution for its peace-keepers engaged in U.N. forces in Bosnia. Failing to get such guarantees, it used its veto to block the renewal of a U.N. peace-keeping mandate in Bosnia,

Using similar logic, France, worried about its involvement in former colonies, ratified the treaty with a caveat calling for a seven-year exemption for war crimes. None of the other European countries placed similar conditions.

However, the court exists only in name. The four-member staff is armed with a telephone and fax machine and will only be able to register complaints until proper staff is recruited. The budget will be adopted in autumns by the states which will then elect the court's 18 judges and the chief prosecutor.

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