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U.S. to Cut Aid Over International Criminal Court

By Jeralyn, Section Foreign Affairs
Posted on Fri Nov 26, 2004 at 05:19:21 AM EST
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Our Republican-dominated Congress has begun to turn up the heat on foreign countries that don't sign "article 98" immunity agreements with the U.S. The countries that don't capitulate stand to lose substantial amounts of foreign aid from the U.S., including amounts that go to programs we have supported in the past because they are in our best interest:

A provision inserted into a $338 billion government spending bill for 2005 would bar the transfer of assistance money from the $2.52 billon economic support fund to a government "that is a party" to the criminal court but "has not entered into an agreement with the United States" to bar legal proceedings against U.S. personnel. The House and Senate are to vote on the budget Dec. 8.....congressional staff members say the legislation would disproportionately hurt small countries with limited strategic importance to the United States.

...Congress's action may affect U.S. Agency for International Development programs designed to promote peace, combat drug trafficking, and promote democracy and economic reforms in poor countries. For instance, the cuts could jeopardize as much as $250 million to support economic growth and reforms in Jordan, $500,000 to promote democracy and fight drug traffickers in Venezuela, and about $9 million to support free trade and other initiatives with Mexico.

We've written a few times about Bush's wrong-headed refusal to sign onto the International Court. A short primer from today's Washington Post:

The criminal court was established by treaty at a 1998 conference in Rome to prosecute perpetrators of the most serious crimes, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The treaty has been signed by 139 countries and ratified by 97. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo of Argentina has begun investigating widespread human rights violations in Congo and Uganda.

The Clinton administration signed the treaty in December 2000, but the Bush administration renounced it in May 2001, citing concern that an international prosecutor might conduct frivolous investigations and trials against American officials, troops and foreign nationals deployed overseas on behalf of the United States. "

We are an advocate of the International Criminal Court--a position we adopted cautiously, after listening to an hours long debate between serious experts on the issue and spending several hours reading and analyzing the court's procedures and the rights intended to be provided to defendants.

The European countries are attempting to block Bush's push for immunity. They say, and they are correct, that it undermines the authority of the Court. Had Bush allowed the U.S. to become a member of the ICC, the U.S. could have helped shape the rules. By thumbing his nose at the Court, the rules were made without us.

The court's advocates maintain that the Bush administration's fears of frivolous prosecution are overstated. They say that the tribunal was created to hold future despots in the ranks of Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Idi Amin accountable for mass killings, not to pursue U.S. officials responsible for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. They note that the court will take on cases only when a state is unable or unwilling to do so.

"The continuing attempt to cut aid to countries that do not support the International Criminal Court is unnecessary; the U.S. doesn't have anything to worry about," said Sally Eberhardt, a spokeswoman for the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. "There are enough safeguards built into the treaty, which the United States helped draft."

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