Comment by rendx
2 months ago
A warning about what? That the US thinks it rules the world and is terrified enough to go after individuals who just happen to work for the wrong employer? That other parts of the world are not allowed to have their own sense and modalities of justice?
> A warning about what?
It's basically a warning against attempting to apply jurisdiction to countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
> That the US thinks it rules the world and is terrified enough to go after individuals who just happen to work for the wrong employer?
The sanctions are due to specific actions(i.e. rulings) taken by the individuals against US and their allies.[0]
> That other parts of the world are not allowed to have their own sense and modalities of justice?
The issue is mostly one of jurisdiction, the ICC is attempting to unilaterally impose jurisdiction on to states that never agreed to delegate authority whatsoever to the ICC.
[0] https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...
> It's basically a warning against attempting to apply jurisdiction to countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
The crimes prosecuted by the ICC are accepted by the US as matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, so the US can have no legitimate objection to (1) any country exercising jurisdiction over them wherever they are alleged to occur, or (2) any country exercising its sovereign power to delegate its exercise of jurisdiction over them anywhere to an international tribunal, like the ICC, either generally, under specified terms (such as those in the Rome Statute), or ad hoc.
And they certainly have the least basis for doing so when the country on whose territory they are alleged to have occurred, and who would thus have jurisdiction whether or not they were matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, does so. (Which is, other than a UNSC resolution, the only way the ICC, under the Rome Statute, gets jurisdiction when the accused are not nationals of a State Party to the Statute.)
The actual objection is not the broad principle you are trying to articulate, but it is to the idea of Israel being accountable under international law for crimes for which it has the full support of the US government, irrespective of any theory of law. Trying to frame it as having a good-faith legalistic rationale is either being woefully ignorant or being as flagrantly dishonest as the US government itself is being.
> The crimes prosecuted by the ICC are accepted by the US as matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, so the US can have no legitimate objection to (1) any country exercising jurisdiction over them wherever they are alleged to occur
There's plenty of legitimate objections such as not trusting a foreign court to appropriately decide international law.
> (2) any country exercising its sovereign power to delegate its exercise of jurisdiction over them anywhere to an international tribunal, like the ICC, either generally, under specified terms (such as those in the Rome Statute), or ad hoc.
In the case of Afghanistan, neither the US nor the Taliban are delegating that sort of authority to the ICC.
> And they certainly have the least basis for doing so when the country on whose territory they are alleged to have occurred, and who would thus have jurisdiction whether or not they were matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, does so.
IMO that's a pretty weak argument, especially when you have states being prosecuted which are non-signatories to the Rome Statute or are not full UN member states like in the case of Palestine.
> The actual objection is not the broad principle you are trying to articulate, but it is to the idea of Israel being accountable under international law for crimes for which it has the full support of the US government, irrespective of any theory of law.
The UN has a very well documented history of bias against Israel.[0] It seems entirely reasonable to me that neither the US nor Israel would trust a UN court, especially for anything related to wars involving Israel.
[0] https://unwatch.org/2024-unga-resolutions-on-israel-vs-rest-...
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ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accept that is their business. Nobody is interfering with their national autonomy. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC. The only country that is imposing their jurisdiction here, and enforcing it outside of their own jurisdiction, are the US. The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement. The ICC is only doing what they received as a task by the signatory countries of the Rome statute, which ultimately decide what actions to take or not. As such, you could say the ICC merely writes "policy recommendations". The US is the one taking action.
Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States or Israel? No, because it is a court. It publishes documents. Legal opinions. You're totally free to decide whether you accept it as a "court" or not.
Can't you see that it is exactly this kind of US exceptionalism and international interfering that stirs hatred, and does not bring peace but breeds terrorism and war?
> ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accepts that is their business. But that still doesn't explain the legal basis of going against individual employees of the ICC. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC or any of the countries that signed the Rome statute.
The ICC is attempting to have arrest warrants enforced through cooperation with states that are parties to the Rome Statutes for claimed offenses by citizens of countries that are not party to the Rome statute. The US views this as an attack on sovereignty essentially and essentially has decided to retaliate by imposing sanctions.
> The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement whatsoever. The US here is taking action.
The ICC issues documents that Rome Statute signatories have agreed to enforce(whether they actually enforce in practice is another matter. Regardless it seems pretty clear that the US considers any threat of enforcement to be sufficient grounds to impose sanctions against the organization they view as attacking it.
> Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States?
The ICC has made it difficult for the head of government of a strategic ally of the US to travel to many countries at a time when that ally is under attack by many other countries. The ICC has in effect threatened to do the same to US citizens as well. There's a bit more nuance than this but it's not hard to see why the US views the ICC as a real threat worthy of sanctions. This is not really a new thing either, the US has even strong-armed many countries into signing "Article 98 agreements" in order to ensure ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over US citizens.[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...
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