Originally published on the CGS blog on August 4, 2014.
US Congressional attitudes on the International Criminal Court have moved away from the days of open hostility epitomized by the Bilateral Immunity Agreement (BIA) Campaign. Now, there are many US representatives and Senators that support the ICC and its mission – to hold individuals accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes accountable.
Senator Leahy (D-VT) put his opinion on the ICC on record during the Bush administration, saying that
By sitting on the sidelines, the United States is losing out on its ability to influence the structure and culture of this important new institution. Each time we refuse to join another treaty or international organization, which has become a pattern of this Administration, we erode our international leadership.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) mirrored Leahy’s distaste for sitting on the sidelines in 2005: “I want us in the ICC, but I’m not satisfied that there are enough safeguards.” His concern for safeguards is fine, just so long as they don’t prevent US leadership on the world stage.
In spite of this support for the ICC in Congress, the US is still prohibited from financially supporting the ICC under law. Public Law 106-113, enacted in 1999, forbids any US funds to be directed towards the support of the ICC. The American Servicemembers’ Protection Act (ASPA) also outlaws US cooperation with the ICC in any form unless it is in the US’s national security interests and the President issues a full waiver of the law.
When I attended a recent Congressional briefing on the ICC, I expected to hear more questions regarding these restrictions on US participation in and cooperation with the ICC. Yet there was almost no discussion on the restrictions and zero questions on the US-ICC relationship. Too much time was spent on the history and origins of the ICC and the crafting of its foundational document, the Rome Statute.
Special guest Ambassador Tiina Intelmann did often refer to how important funding is to the ICC. How to raise funds and conduct field work – making the arrests and investigations – were the two major questions facing the ICC on a daily basis, the Ambassador repeated several times. She also suggested that these were two key areas that could be greatly improved if the US played a more cooperative role.
After the meeting she also tweeted a suggestion directed at the Obama administration.
I didn’t think that Ambassador Intelmann would directly advocate for the repeal of specific US laws, but talking in more specific terms regarding US engagement with the ICC would have been more helpful to the Congressional staffers at the briefing. I say this because when it came time to ask questions, the staffers didn’t seem informed enough to do so.
There were some very intriguing questions asked about the ICC, but most did not directly involve the US; there were questions about the ICC in Ukraine and ICC budget use. One question from a staffer for Rep. David Maffei did spark my own intrigue: Considering the criticisms the African Union (AU) has of the ICC, would US ascension to the ICC create problems for US-AU relations?
Ambassador Intelmann did not feel it was her place to speculate on the US-AU relationship. However, this one question represents a much greater Congressional discussion that the ICC deserves. The ICC is a powerful tool for justice around the world which has already made a significant difference, and the need for US global leadership demands that Congress ratify the Rome Statute. Yet too few people know even what the Rome Statute or the ICC is. Let’s start by learning more about the ICC.
