Germany Criticizes US Stance on International Criminal Court
July 6, 2002
Speaking at the opening of the parliamentary meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Berlin on Saturday, Germany’s Foreign Minister urged the US to rethink its position on the International Criminal Court.
In front of some 300 delegates, Joschka Fischer called on the US to cooperate with the international community and drop its insistence on immunity for US citizens.
The court, which began operating in The Hague this week, became the focus of an intensive international debate, when the US refused to ratify the court’s treaty and threatened to veto a UN Security Council decision on renewing the peacekeeping mandate in Bosnia. American diplomats had insisted that US troops operating in Bosnia be excluded from the court’s jurisdiction before approving the continuation of the UN mission.
Washington fears the International Criminal Court could be misused to encourage politically motivated prosecutions against Americans stationed overseas. It therefore voted against ratifying the court’s treaty back in May, despite having signed it in 2000 under then President Bill Clinton.
No special US status
Fischer spoke out vehemently on Saturday against the recalcitrant US stance and said that granting special immunity for Americans would "undermine the goal and aims" of the UN Rome Statute that set up the court.
The German minister reminded the delegates at the OSCE conference that the court was established to "keep perpetrators of the most serious rights abuses from going unpunished." An exclusion of the US from the court’s jurisdiction would "damage the authority of the United Nations," he added.
In his speech Fischer praised the establishment of the court as a "milestone in human rights," and pointed out that "more than 70 countries have already approved the Rome Statute." The United States, however, joins a list of questionable countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea, which have all rejected the international court’s authority.
"We must do all we can in the coming weeks to assure the efficient and credible work of the court as well as to find a solution that will guarantee the continuation of important UN peacekeeping missions," Fischer stated at the end of his speech.
But time is of the essence. The UN Security Council agreed unanimously on Thursday to let the mandate of the Bosnia mission run on until at least July 15 while talks continued. Fischer and his European colleagues hope by then the US will have been persuaded to adopt a more cooperative stance regarding the peacekeeping missions and the International Criminal Court.