gambia: Gambia Signs Impunity Deal With US

Gambia Signs Impunity Deal With US, The Independent
Despite international outcry, The Gambia has become the first country
in Africa to sign an agreement with the United States, which ensures
that Americans are exempted from International Criminal Court
prosecution over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
On October 6 2002 Foreign Secretary Baboucarr Blaise Jagne appended
his signature on behalf of The Gambia government to endorse Agreement
98, which twelve other nations have signed with the US that will in
effect protect that country's citizens from prosecution by the
International Court should they fall foul of the law. Mauritania is
the second African country after The Gambia to enter into such a pact
with the United States, which vehemently opposes the idea of
subjecting Americans to the ICC jurisdiction anywhere they may be.
According to the ICC, the new system of international justice, which
came about with the creation of the International Criminal Court
(ICC), is under attack by American attempt to excuse its citizens,
who the ICC holds should not be exempted from its sphere of
authority.
The ICC says it is committed to investigating and prosecuting people
accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The USA
is attacking this new system of international justice by pressing
states around the world to enter into impunity agreements not to
surrender US nationals to the ICC. The US government is threatening
to withdraw military assistance from countries that will not agree to
its terms.
'Such agreements are unlawful under international law. They threaten
to undermine international efforts to stop criminals ever again
planning and committing the worst crimes known to humanity' Amnesty
International pointed out. Amnesty International the world's premier
defender of human rights has released a petition urging all
governments not to enter into these impunity agreements and had
presented the signatures to governments around the world. Amnesty
International also said it was forwarding signatures received since
September 27 to European Union (EU) political leaders in advance of a
forthcoming meeting of EU in its campaign against the United States.
'The International Criminal Court is an essential part of the new
international justice system. It can help end the impunity that has
allowed the perpetrators of the worst crimes known to humanity to
remain unpunished. No one should be granted impunity for genocide,
crimes against humanity and war crimes in the International Criminal
Court. States should refuse to enter any agreement that allows the US
authorities not to fulfil their obligations under international law
to investigate and prosecute people accused of genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes - as defined in the Statute of the
International Criminal Court - in its national courts and in a manner
fully consistent with international law; surrender an accused to the
International Criminal Court if its national courts are unable or
unwilling to investigate and prosecute the crimes' Amnesty
International demanded. Meanwhile the speaking in Berlin, Germany, US
under secretary for Arms Control and International Security John
Bolton said for a number of reasons, the United States decided that
the ICC had unacceptable consequences for her national sovereignty.
Bolton who said that the ICC is an organization whose precepts go
against fundamental American notions of sovereignty, checks and
balances, and national independence described it as an agreement
harmful to the national interests of the United States, and harmful
to American presence abroad. 'However, it is a misconception that the
U.S. is out to undermine the ICC. To the contrary, we are determined
to work with States Parties, utilizing a mechanism prescribed within
the Rome Statute, to find an acceptable solution to our differences'
he clarified. U.S. military forces and civilian personnel and private
citizens are currently active in peacekeeping and humanitarian
missions in almost 100 countries and reiterating President Bush,
Bolton maintained that every person serving under the American flag
will answer to his or her own superiors and to military law, not to
the rulings of an unaccountable International Criminal Court.
'So in order to protect our citizens, we are in the process of
negotiating bilateral agreements with the largest possible number of
states, including non-Parties. These Article 98 agreements, as they
are called, provide American citizens with essential protection
against the Court's purported jurisdiction claims, and allow us to
remain engaged internationally with our friends and allies' Bolton
outlined. Bolton said the United States was reiterating the position
of other critics of the international justice system by stating that
the ICC is simply an overdue addition to the family of international
organizations, an evolutionary step ahead of the Nuremberg Tribunal,
and the next logical institutional development over the ad hoc war
crimes courts for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Although Bolton said
the United States agrees with the spirit behind the establishment of
an international justice mechanism, he claimed that in several
respects, the ICC is poised to assert authority over nation states,
and to promote its prosecution over alternative methods for dealing
with the worst criminal offenses.
'The United States will regard as illegitimate any attempts to bring
American citizens under its jurisdiction. The ICC does not fit into a
coherent international 'constitutional' design that delineates
clearly how laws are made, adjudicated or enforced, subject to
popular accountability and structured to protect liberty. There is no
such design. Instead, the Court and the Prosecutor are simply 'out
there' in the international system. Requiring the United States to be
bound by this treaty, with its unaccountable Prosecutor, is clearly
inconsistent with American standards of constitutionalism and the
standards for imposing international requirements' he argued. He said
the ICC's authority is vague and excessively elastic and that it is
most emphatically not a Court of limited jurisdiction.
'Crimes can be added subsequently that go beyond those included in
the Rome Statute. Parties to the Statute are subject to these
subsequently added crimes only if they affirmatively accept them, but
the Statute purports automatically to bind non-parties, such as the
United States, to any such new crimes. It is neither reasonable nor
fair that these crimes would apply to a greater extent to states that
have not agreed to the terms of the Rome statute than to those that
have' he said. Bolton argued that numerous prospective 'crimes' were
suggested at Rome and commanded wide support from participating
nations. This he said includes the crime of 'aggression', which was
included in the Statute, but not defined.
'Although frequently easy to identify, 'aggression' can at times be
something in the eye of the beholder. For example, Israel justifiably
feared in Rome that certain actions, such as its initial use of force
in the Six Day War, would be perceived as illegitimate pre-emptive
strikes that almost certainly would have provoked proceedings against
top Israeli officials. Moreover, there seems little doubt that Israel
will be the target of a complaint in the ICC concerning conditions
and practices by the Israeli military in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel recently decided to declare its intention not to become a
party to the ICC or to be bound by the Statute's obligations' he
pointed out.