| Table Talk panelists debate merits of International Criminal Court
BY ADRIENNE FRANK More than 100 students and faculty were treated to a spirited debate during last Wednesday’s Table Talk discussion titled “The International Criminal Court: What’s the Fuss About?” Panelist Anne Heindel, assistant director of the War Crimes Research Office at the Washington College of Law, described the court as “cutting edge,” while Lee Casey of the Washington, D.C., firm Baker and Hostetler warned of its “supernational authority.” The International Criminal Court (ICC), which is composed of 97 nations, was created in July 2002 and hears cases that deal with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The ICC only takes a case when a member state is unwilling or unable to prosecute the offender. “This truly is a court of last resort,” Heindel said. One of the court’s greatest strengths, she added, is that, unlike the tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, “The ICC doesn’t come in after the victors have won. The court’s there from the beginning and, in that way, is much more effective. The whole goal is to hold individuals responsible and prevent future war crimes.” According to Heindel, the court’s elected prosecutor has received more than 700 communications regarding various conflicts around the world. However, many of those are outside the ICC’s jurisdiction since the court can only consider incidents that occurred after its inception. And while Heindel suggested that the ICC might play a role in the crisis in Darfur, she said that, because neither the United States or Iraq are members of the court, nothing that happens in the Iraq war can go before the court. “The U.S. doesn’t join treaties easily,” she said. “So I don’t expect that they’ll join the ICC tomorrow. But hopefully it’s not out of the realm of possibility.” On the contrary, argued Casey—who is staunchly opposed to the United States’ ratification of the Rome Statute, out of which the ICC was created—doing so would threaten U.S. autonomy and undermine the Constitution. “If the U.S. ratified the [Rome Statute], it would, for the first time in more than 200 years, acknowledge an unelected and unaccountable foreign power with the right to make law for the American people,” said Casey, whose law practice deals with international and international humanitarian law. That would represent, continued Casey, an “unprecedented secession of authority away from the people and their elected representatives and would violate the most basic tenet of American democracy—that the American people have the unalienable right to choose the men and women who will exercise power over them.” If the United States were to join the ICC, Casey said, it would require not only a constitutional amendment, but a fundamental change in the United States’ basic assumption of democracy. Heindel responded to Casey’s criticisms by saying that the ICC is only a court.
“The ICC would be phenomenal if it were as powerful as Mr. Casey seems to think it is,” said Heindel. “But the ICC only has jurisdiction over individuals, not states. It doesn’t override domestic law; our [United States] policy decisions [would] remain our own.” |
