wot did you expect....justice?

[Guest guest]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/669284.asp?0cb=-61824124

U.S. Senate rebuffs international tribunal

Body votes to shield U.S. soldiers

from trials on war-crimes charges

By Tom Curry

MSNBC

 

Dec. 7 - By an overwhelming margin, the Senate voted Friday to bar any U.S.

cooperation with a new International Criminal Court, which is being created

to try cases of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Even

though the United States has not ratified the treaty that set up the court,

U.S. soldiers and officials might still be subject to its jurisdiction. The

vote on the amendment, offered by Sen. Zell Miller, D- Ga. and Sen. Jesse

Helms, R-N.C., was 78 to 21.

 

ACCORDING TO the group Human Rights Watch, the International Criminal Court,

which was created by a treaty drafted by a 120-nation conference in Rome in

1998, is " the most significant international tribunal since the Nuremberg

courts after World War II, and the most important advancement in human

rights protection since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "

 

But before the Court can begin operating, 60 countries must ratify the

treaty. To date, 47 countries have ratified it.

 

GLOBAL IN SCOPE

 

There are currently two ad hoc war-crimes tribunals, for the former

Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but they have limited geographical and political

scope, while the International Criminal Court would be global in its reach,

according to Human Rights Watch.

 

Helms said in a statement Friday that his amendment " ensures that neither

the International Criminal Court, nor overzealous prosecutors and judges,

will ever be able to persecute American military personnel. "

 

The Helms-Miller measure, which was attached as an amendment to a military

spending bill, authorizes the president to take necessary action to rescue

any U.S. soldiers who may be handed over to the International Criminal

Court.

 

In May, the House voted to include similar language in a separate bill

authorizing State Department programs.

 

Sen Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said without the Helms-Miller measure, " American

soldiers abroad who are defending our interests, defending our freedom,

risking and giving their lives... could be subject to being brought before

an international court where no judge is an American, no procedure was

established by an American Congress, and no Constitutional guarantees

apply. "

 

FOR HITLER, NOT U.S. SOLDIERS

 

He added, " I think we ought to have an international court to try people

like Adolf Hitler. But when I send my son or you send your son or your

daughter into the military to serve our country, they should not be subject

to being brought before an international tribunal. "

 

Parrying Gramm, Sen Chris Dodd, D-Conn., pointed out that the United States

has long had agreements with other countries such as Japan that allow U.S.

military personnel to be tried on criminal charges such as rape and murder

in the courts of the nation where the service member is stationed.

 

So the concept of U.S. soldiers being subject to foreign law is not new,

Dodd said.

 

" To suggest somehow that American men and women in uniform are never

subjected to any jurisdiction of a foreign land where the courts and the

laws may be substantially different than what we have " is not true, Dodd

said. " There are U.S. servicemen all the time who are tried in local courts

in other countries. ... We're not breaking new ground here. "

 

Gramm fired back that those bilateral agreements only applied to friendly

countries where U.S. military personnel were stationed with the approval of

the host government. Such agreements did not apply to battlefield conditions

in hostile countries, Gramm said.

 

And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who also opposes the court, cited the

best-selling book " Black Hawk Down, " which reported that in order to fight

their way out of being surrounded in Mogadishu in 1993, American soldiers

had to kill thousands of Somalis.

" I wouldn't like to see those Americans before a tribunal composed of

Somali-government people, " McCain remarked.

 

Dodd said the United States needed to keep working to negotiate changes in

the operations of the International Criminal Court to provide protections

for U.S. soldiers. " In the absence of us being there [at the court], there's

a far greater likelihood that our men and women in uniform are going to be

subjected to terrible rules, " Dodd argued.

 

" Here we are asking the world to join us in apprehending Osama bin Laden, we

're building a coalition " and yet, he said, the United States was " walking

away from the International Criminal Court, where every member of NATO but

us has ratified this agreement. "

 

Former President Bill Clinton signed the treaty authorizing the court on New

Year's Eve last year, the last possible day he could do so, so that the

United States could keep trying to bargain for changes in the court's

jurisdiction.

 

President Bush, who has criticized the treaty, has said he will not send it

to the Senate for ratification without changes.

 

On Nov. 13, Bush issued an executive order authorizing U.S. military

tribunals to conduct trials of non-citizens who commit or plan acts of

terrorism against the United States.

 

Some of Bush's critics have suggested that U.S. military tribunals might be

seen as unfair by people outside the United States, and that alleged

terrorists should instead be handed over to an international tribunal such

as the International Criminal Court.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.