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US
Vetoes Bosnian Peacekeeping Resolution In Protest Against International
Court United States opposition to the International Criminal Court has led to a diplomatic showdown in the United Nations Security Council that may force an end to the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. In a vote last night on a Security Council resolution extending the mandate for the UN peacekeeping operation in Bosnia, the United States exercised its veto power, effectively discontinuing the mandate of the mission. The US was the only country on the 15-country Council to stand in opposition to the resolution. Bulgaria, one of the sponsors of the resolution, abstained. The mandate was originally due to expire on June 21, but was extended temporarily until June 30. After vetoing the resolution, the US agreed to another extension until midnight of July 3, which would allow all sides more time to search for a compromise. The United States has refused to support the resolution because it wants UN peacekeepers to have immunity from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court, which came into existence today. The other countries in the Security Council are strongly resisting this US demand. US Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte explained the US’s vote by saying that the US has exposed its people to risk in peacekeeping operations around the world. "Having accepted these risks by exposing people to dangerous and difficult situations in the service of peace and stability," he said, "we will not ask them to accept the additional risk of politicized prosecutions before a court whose jurisdiction over our people the government of the United States does not accept." The standoff began on June 18, when the US introduced an amendment to the resolution that would renew the Bosnia operation’s mandate, giving peacekeepers involved in the mission immunity from arrest, detention or prosecution in connection with all acts committed on the territory of UN-member states (with the exception of their own country of origin). At the same time, the US introduced a more sweeping resolution that would make such immunity an automatic feature of all future UN peacekeeping missions. The direct UN peacekeeping operation in Bosnia involves 1,500 international police officers, of which 46 are American. In addition, the NATO-led S-For mission in Bosnia (comprising 17,000 troops, including 3,100 Americans) operates under the UN’s authorization, which will also expire on July 3 if no resolution is passed. It is possible that the NATO mission would continue even if UN backing is withdrawn, though Germany would be forced to withdraw its troops, because its domestic laws would not permit its continued participation if the mission were to lose its UN mandate. The US tried to make similar amendments to a resolution for a new peacekeeping mission for East Timor last month, but eventually yielded to the strong opposition it faced from other Council members. Of the fifteen members of the Security Council, six have already ratified the ICC. Six others have signed the Rome statute establishing the ICC, and are expected to ratify it soon. Beyond the immediate dispute over Bosnia, the US initiative appears to threaten its future involvement in all United Nations missions. Richard S. Williamson, US Alternate Representative to the UN, said on June 19 that "the whole spectrum of United Nations peacekeeping operations will have to be reviewed if we are unsuccessful at getting the protections we demand be in place for UN peacekeeping operations to have United States citizens participate." Apart from the NATO forces in Bosnia and Kosovo, US participation in peacekeeping operations is limited. As of April 30, there are 677 police and only 35 troops from America serving as peacekeepers in the field out of a total UN peacekeeping force of 47,000 worldwide stationed along the Iraq-Kuwait and Ethiopia-Eritrea borders, and in Georgia, East Timor, and the Sinai. However, if the United States chose to withdraw its financial support for peacekeeping operations, the consequences would be much more serious. The US currently provides 27% of the entire United Nations peacekeeping budget. A "Frontal Attack on International Law" The US stance on the ICC and its current efforts in the Security Council have become a major source of tension between the United States and some of its closest allies, who are staunch supporters of the ICC. Nancy Bergerson, a Foreign Affairs spokeswoman for Canada, called the US’s maneuvers a "frontal attack on international law," urging the Security Council to reject any proposed US alteration to the resolution on peacekeeping in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another UN diplomat told The New York Times that, "What member states find most irritating is this perennial argument that the United States is a special case, that rules are for everybody else. Even close friends are very, very nervous. This is really a serious assault on the international legal order." Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch has called the US gestures an "ideological jihad against international justice." In reaction to the Security Council vote, Dicker said that "by threatening to end peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and holding the people of Sarajevo and Srebrenica hostage, the U.S. has stooped to a new low in its efforts to undermine the court and the rule of law". Human Rights Watch has argued that the US initiative represents an attempt to revise a treaty that has already been ratified by over seventy countries, because the language of the US proposals would "drastically alter the obligations of States Parties to the ICC treaty, specifically the obligation to surrender an accused to the Court." Under the ICC, if alleged crimes are committed on the territory of a State Party, the ICC could have jurisdiction to try the accused regardless of his or her nationality. This would in turn obligate the rest of the States Parties to surrender the accused to the ICC. The US-proposed resolutions, however, would change all that, requiring states to ignore this directive. The result, according to Human Rights Watch, would "effectively rewrite the ICC treaty and nullify the national laws of many States Parties that have now incorporated the ICC’s "prosecute or surrender" obligations. In response to such criticism, US officials have pointed out what they consider the hypocrisy of some of their allies. The US cited an agreement negotiated by Britain on behalf of itself and the 19 other countries comprising the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, in which the Interim Afghani Authority agreed that all members of the force there "may not be surrendered to or otherwise transferred to the custody of an international tribunal." In light of this agreement, Williams said, "Our reaction is that sovereignty is a two-way street and we have the same concerns that they had." Human Rights Watch called the text of the ISAF’s agreement "ill-conceived," but emphasized that it differed from the US’s current attempts to undermine the ICC in two important ways. First, the ISAF agreement must be viewed in the context of those governments’ pledge as States Parties to cooperate with the ICC in the unlikely event that a peacekeeper committed crimes and a government’s investigation or prosecution was held to be illegitimate. Second, the ISAF agreement only sought protection for contributing countries’ personnel in the country hosting a peacekeeping mission, whereas the US’s proposals aim to prevent not just countries that receive peacekeepers, but governments anywhere in the world from sending a peacekeeper implicated in human rights crimes to the ICC. Possibility for Compromise? One possible compromise that has been suggested is the creation of the safeguards the US is looking for through a series of bilateral agreements. These agreements, such as the Status of Force Agreements (SOFA) or Status of Mission Agreements (SOMA), however, are not comforting to the United States because they only work bilaterally, and as Representative Williams said, "therefore travel to a third country would not necessarily be covered." The US is seeking blanket immunity from prosecution for all future peacekeeping missions everywhere. Another proposal was offered by France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-David Levitte, who urged Washington to withdraw its personnel from the mission, rather than voting to shut it down altogether. Only 47 members of the mission would be affected -- the U.N.'s top official, Jacques Klein, and the 46 American police officers. There was also talk of expediting a planned European Union takeover of the 1,500-member police-training mission. As of now the transfer of power is scheduled to take place January 1, 2003, but there is a possibility that efforts could be increased so there would be no downtime between the operations. Despite these creative solutions, it seems that the two camps are standing their ground. The Guardian reported that British officials describe Washington's stance as "bloody-minded" and "very unhelpful." Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador to the UN, noted that for the past seven years, American forces have operated in Bosnia and Kosovo under the jurisdiction of the UN ad hoc war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Considering this and other aspects of the vote, Ambassador Levitte said the American veto was "difficult to understand in many ways." US Battle Against the ICC Continues on Domestic Front The battle against the ICC is being waged on the domestic front, as well. The American Servicemembers Protection Act, dubbed the ‘Hague Invasion Act’, has been passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and is currently in conference. If signed into law, the act would enable the President to use ‘all means necessary’ to free American servicemembers from detention by the ICC, which will sit in The Hague. Traditionally, such language implies the ability to declare war. Both the Netherlands and the US are party to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whose member states have agreed to not attack one another. The Senate’s recent passage of the Act provoked a flood of hostile and occasionally ironic comment in the Dutch press. On June 12, the US Embassy in the Netherlands was forced to issue a formal statement, declaring that "obviously, we cannot envisage circumstances under which the United States would need to resort to military action against the Netherlands or another ally." Related chapters from Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know Bosnia Related Links U.S.
Proposals to Undermine the International Criminal Court Through
a U.N. Security Council Resolution United Nations Website for the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court The American Servicemember and Citizen Protection Act of 2002 (H.R. 4169) US
Vetoes Bosnia Mission, Then Allows 3-day Reprieve Human
Rights, American Wrongs
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