| Tribuni Angusticlavii
| Quote: |
Originally Posted by 03USMC
So let me ask you this. Do you feel an Aussie Troop, an Italian troop, or a Brit should just be turned over to a UN convened court at their whim? Thats my problem.
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Emmm thats not a problem as the stated countries has Already Voted For the creatin of ICC ..........In 1998 120 countries voted to adopt the treaty only seven countries voted against it (including China, Libya, Iraq, and the United States) .............. Before the Court can be set up, 60 countries need to ratify the treaty.
By the 2000 more than 139 states signed the treaty........ As of May 2003, 90 countries have ratified it ( which Fulfills the minimum requred 60 Countries) .
Now the Only Problem is the US using the veto Power. 
Until 2002 USA was supporting the trety and was spearheading to get support of member countries to get the trety approvd....... .And there are some serious Misunderstanding about Who can be Proceuted in ICC Quote: WHO CAN BE TRIED AND FOR WHAT CRIMES BY THE ICC?
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the world's first permanent court with jurisdiction to try individuals accused of the some of the most serious international crimes, as codified in the ICC's Rome Statute and detailed its Elements of Crimes:
* Crimes against humanity -- a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of one or more acts such as, for example, murder, extermination, enslavement, the forcible transfer of a population, torture, or rape. This course of conduct must be part of a) a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population and b) a State or organizational policy to commit such attack (for example, the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of Kosovo in the 1990's included crimes against humanity).
* Genocide -- intentionally committing an "act of genocide" in order to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Acts of genocide include killing members of the group, seriously wounding members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures to prevent births, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group (for example, the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust and of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994).
* Serious war crimes -- crimes in violation of well-accepted laws of war, in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes (for example, the targeting of civilians in Sarajevo by snipers during the Bosnian conflict).
ARE THERE ANY LIMITS ON ICC JURISDICTION?
* The ICC can only exercise jurisdiction over crimes occurring after July 1, 2002, the official start-up date of the Court.
* The Court does not have universal jurisdiction. The precondition to the exercise of ICC jurisdiction over a crime is that the crime must have been committed on the territory or by a citizen of a state that has either ratified the Court's Statute or has specially consented to its jurisdiction over the situation in which the crime occurred.
If that precondition is satisfied, then a state party to the ICC Statute or the ICC Prosecutor (with the approval of the judges) can refer to the ICC for investigation a situation in which ICC crimes are suspected of having been committed.
If the U.N. Security Council refers a situation to the ICC using the Council's enforcement authority under the UN Charter, then that precondition would not need to be fulfilled.
* The ICC can only look into situations that are "the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole." In general, this means that the ICC will only take a case if multiple or very massive atrocities have been deliberately planned.
* The ICC is designed as a court of last resort. The Court will defer to national proceedings -- whether or not they lead to prosecution -- except if it concludes that the state in question is incapable of acting because, for example, it has no functioning judicial system, or is unwilling to act because, for example, it has acted in bad faith.
WHO CREATED THE ICC?
* The ICC Statute was adopted in Rome in 1998 by 120 countries after several years of negotiations at the United Nations. 139 countries ultimately signed the ICC Statute, and 96 states had ratified or acceded to it by September 2004. The ICC Statute came into force on July 1, 2002, following the required 60th ratification.
* Support for the ICC has been led by a coalition of America's friends and allies, including all members of the European Union and all members of NATO except the US and Turkey.
* The ICC is supported by many states that have recently experienced severe crises as a result of ongoing impunity or attempts to try human rights violators within their domestic systems, including Argentina, Cambodia, Colombia, Croatia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Paraguay, Peru, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Uganda.
* The US was involved with the ICC negotiations until early 2002 and made extensive contributions to the ICC Statute and its indispensable supplemental documents. These include provisions giving strong deference to national courts, an important role for the Security Council, due process rights drawn from the US Bill of Rights, and the definitions and elements of the ICC crimes.
IS THE ICC PART OF THE UNITED NATIONS?
* The ICC is not a UN body; it is not under the jurisdiction of the General Assembly or of the Secretary-General. It is an independent international court with its own legal capacity, created and governed by its own treaty. It will not be administered or paid for through the UN. It is financed by, and accountable to, only those states that have chosen to ratify the ICC Statute. It is not located at UN headquarters, but at The Hague, the capital of the Netherlands.
The Court is linked to the UN in at least one crucial respect: the Security Council has the authority to refer investigations to it, or to temporarily suspend them. If the UN Security Council refers a situation to the ICC, then the UN membership as a whole may be assessed some portion of the Court's expenses relating to that specific investigation.
WHY DO WE NEED AN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT?
* There is no existing court like the ICC.
o Unlike the International Court of Justice or "World Court," which is a UN organ and can only decide disputes between states, the ICC is a treaty-based criminal court that can only try individuals for designated atrocity crimes.
o Unlike the two ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, which were created by the UN Security Council to deal with atrocity crimes in those regions during specific conflicts, the ICC is a permanent court that could, depending on the circumstances, investigate and prosecute any individual accused of committing an atrocity crime within the ICC's jurisdiction after July 1, 2002.
* Most of history's worst killers have gone unpunished. Josef Stalin said that, "[a] single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." The ICC represents a strong and growing commitment by the international community to end impunity for atrocity crimes in the 21st Century.
* After violent armed conflicts or other massive assaults on civilian populations, many states remain mired in cycles of violence and retribution. Prosecuting individuals for atrocity crimes can:
o Achieve justice for the victims and for society and help create respect for the rule of law;
o Counter attempts to blame nations or ethnic, religious, or other groups as a whole for the crimes of individuals;
o Isolate and incapacitate criminal leaders so that they can be removed from active political participation;
o Acknowledge and condemn the suffering of victims and survivors;
o Establish an accurate historical record; and
o Act as a deterrent to future arch criminals.
* These benefits can be advanced by the mere existence of the ICC. States will be encouraged to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes because, if they do not, the ICC may find it necessary to pursue its own investigations and prosecutions.
Source:ICC Info |
Peace
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