Comment by throwaway3060
12 hours ago
IIRC, the prosecutor on the ICC responded to the sanctions by suggesting that they could charge individuals interfering with the court with obstruction. Which, as far as US sanctions are concerned, they definitely don't have the jurisdiction to do. I don't think anything legal came of it, but that is exactly the sort of threat that, from a prosecutor, sounds like abuse.
Why do you say they don't have jurisdiction in that case?
Article 70:
“It shall be a crime for any person to commit any of the following acts:
(a) giving false testimony;
(b) presenting false or forged evidence;
(c) corruptly influencing a witness, expert, or court official;
(d) interfering with or intimidating a witness, expert, or court official;
(e) committing any other act which perverts the course of justice in relation to proceedings before the Court.”
Article 70's jurisdiction is not tied to member states. It applies to anyone, anywhere that may affect the court's functioning.
edit: maybe you're saying the ICC cannot have jurisdiction over people/nations that never agreed to be apart of their jurisdiction, regardless of what the Rome Statue says?
Yes, just because the Rome statute claims jurisdiction doesn't make it true, if the jurisdiction in question didn't agree.
In the US, this has all the legal power of Joe Sixpack declaring legal power, or a Russian court. If the ICC tried, the US would tell them to pound sand (or more likely, increase sanctions).
Since the US is not a signatory, as far as they are concerned, the ICC is just a random organization claiming to hold powers it doesn't have.
If a foreign national threatened or tried to improperly influence a US judge, you better belueve the US courts would claim juridsiction.
Generally speaking courts usually claim juridsiction over actions that take affect in their territory even if comitted outside of it (e.g. someone running a scam call center specificly targeting americans would likely get in trouble with us courts even if they never step foot there. Someone hiring an assain to kill an american will still get charged even if they never step foot in america). The ICC is not unique in this regard. The limiting factors here are politics and power not traditional views of how juridsiction works.
There is a difference between juridsiction and actual ability to execute judgements/orders.
2 replies →
In the giants legal overreach death match of USA vs ICC, I am betting on the USA as a force that can actually enforce out-of-jurisdiction law against the other