Originally published on the CGS blog on April 1, 2009.
Today, the Washington Post’s lead editorial jumped on Arab states that welcomed Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to the Doha Arab League summit. The Post observed the Leagues’ call for the:
“international community to prosecute those responsible” for alleged ‘war crimes’ committed by Israel in its recent offensive in Gaza.”
As well as the Leagues’:
“ardent defense of Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir — who was welcomed to the Doha summit despite an outstanding arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on multiple war crimes charges.”
However, the Post has failed to point out the Obama administrations’ own double standard. While U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has strongly endorsed the Court’s decision to issue the Bashir arrest warrants, the rest of the Administration has remained silent on the responsibility of other nations to honor those warrants and deliver Bashir to the Court, as well as the United States responsibility to do so. Instead the U.S. has continued to fund those nations, for example sending $1.3 billion to Egypt.
If the United States is to elevate the importance of human rights, as it did yesterday by announcing it will run for the Human Rights Coucil, it should demonstrate its own commitment to holding the world’s most heinous criminals accountable for their actions by increasing its cooperation with the ICC.
This includes: supporting the arrest of al-Bashir, an alleged mastermind of mass-murders, rapes and other horrendous crimes; formal cooperation with other ongoing investigations in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere; active and constructive attendance at the ICC Review Conference in 2010 and at the meetings preparing for it; and reinstatement of the US signature of the Court’s Rome Statute.
Why should Arab leaders and those of other nations feel inclined to respect the ICC’s actions when the United States remains ambiguous about the Court?
