Only
intense objections from the Pentagon prevented the Clinton administration
from advocating a permanent world criminal court when the president
recently addressed the United Nations, according to the New York Times.
No less a personage than U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan took the
occasion to scold the permanent members of the Security Council for
not averting earlier atrocities, and his pointed criticism of the failure
to intervene specifically in Rwanda recalled that it was the U.S. which
blocked action there five years ago. At the same time, he proclaimed
that national borders can no longer hide injustice and that all international
bad guys now need to be brought to account under U.N. standards of human
rights in a world court.
The Nuremberg trials convicting Nazis after World War II gave the idea
a generally positive tenor. And the United States has been the prime
mover for additional international criminal tribunals in the former
Yugoslavia, Iraq, Cambodia and - belatedly - Rwanda. America's refusal
to support a permanent court, therefore, has led to charges of hypocrisy.
The influential British magazine the Economist concluded: "America clearly
believes in building a system of international justice, but on one vital
condition: that such a system does not apply to America itself."
Actually, Albion's perfidy was showing too. While its NATO allies were
critical of U.S. inaction, they forced prosecutor's indictments to be
limited to cases where the national authorities refuse to investigate
and punish alleged atrocities. Since nations causing atrocities would
surely pretend to investigate themselves, what this really means is
NATO thinks the English and French U.N. vetoes can stop anyone from
bringing them to court even if they sign.
While the British fault the U.S. position as "an absolutist version
of sovereignty," they do not trust international courts either. Only
they are more cynical. NATO skepticism is rational because international
standards would not be high. The Freedom House study, "Freedom in the
World, 1998-99," and the just-issued "2000 Index of Economic Freedom"
by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, make it abundantly
clear that freedom, justice, democracy, human rights, limited government
and the rest are available only for a minority of the world's population.
Under the former, more liberal standard, only 39.8 percent live under
free regimes, 26.7 percent live in partly free regimes and 33.6 percent
live under unfree regimes - not much different than in 1992 or even
1981, even with the fall of the Soviet Union. Given this standard, no
international court would meet out justice any Westerner would recognize
as such.
Targets for international censure are very selective and are never powerful.
Even following World War II, there was no tribunal for the Soviet Union,
which had made a pact with Nazi Germany that started the war, and had
simply invaded and raped little Finland. No action was taken against
Italy for its invasion and use of poison gas against Ethiopia. No one
acted to prevent India from absorbing Goa. East Timor languished for
decades after Indonesia simply absorbed its people. One can bet the
ranch no one will bring China to account for annexing Tibet.
Anyway, when the justice-dispensers arrive, it is too late and their
earlier meddling often leads to worse. Intense pressure was put on Rwanda's
Hutu president to share power with his traditional Tutsi enemies. Fearful
that they would lose control, Hutus killed a half-million potential
voters. In Kosovo, the mass deportations followed, not preceded, NATO's
intervention. In East Timor, again, it was Western pressure that led
to the referendum and the mayhem. The weak do not get justice because
no one is willing to commit ground troops in the midst of carnage, so
they only get a tribunal after the fact, if at all. Justice is supposed
to be for the strong and weak equally - but that contradicts the entire
experience with world criminal courts.
Given the envy the U.S. inspires in the rest of the world and its unique
willingness to abide by law, its citizens, soldiers and officials just
might be the most numerous and popular defendants. In 1986, a world
court condemned the United States for its intervention in Nicaragua.
Most forget that a "world court" indicted the United States for crimes
against humanity for its Vietnam War. Clearly, the My Lai massacre gave
the proceedings some validity, but the whole war?
The recent allegation that some members of the U.S. 1st Cavalry fired
upon unarmed civilians and blew a bridge with fleeing refugees, to secure
a retreat in No Gun Ri, Korea, again raised the issue of war crimes
by the United States. While South Korea is willing to settle for reparations,
erratic North Korea has threatened to "square" things - and they are
developing nuclear missiles.
Who might be a war criminal? When Russia was accused of bombing Chechens,
to stop the region from claiming independence (with neighboring Dagestan),
the Russians said they were only emulating the American bombing of Kosovo
- and, it is against the Geneva Convention to bomb civilians, which
the U.S. did for 78 days. Catholic Bishop Augustin Misago is accused
of complicity in genocide by Rwanda for the crime of not sheltering
civilians. If omission becomes the standard, the net will be large indeed.
Mr. Annan recently called the U.S. "unreasonable" for blocking fuel
and food for Iraq and objected to blocking the lifting of the embargo
on Yugoslavia for fuel oil, even to two Serbian cities controlled by
Slobodan Milosevic's political opponents - much less for the rest of
Serbia. This despite the fact a European Union official told Reuters,
"People are going to freeze" in all Serbia if the embargo is not ended
by winter. Causing innocent people to freeze meets the criteria for
a war crime in anyone's book.
As the U.S. Supreme Court has circumvented the constitutional role of
Congress and the president to settle major criminal, racial and cultural
questions of the day, one could expect a permanent international court
to someday challenge the Security Council, which might be what Mr. Annan
wants. But even if some Al Gore might one day pledge the U.S. to a world
court, one can count on the Russians, the Chinese and the British to
veto it.
Hypocrisy truly is the homage vice pays to virtue. For the rest of the
world does not wear liberal, rose-tinted glasses. They realize that
power makes sovereignty supreme, and that pretending to justice in the
midst of either power or mayhem only emboldens the truly crazy to do
worse, up to nuclear retaliation and wanton massacre. The United States
might as well stand for common sense and national sovereignty now and
firmly reject the pipe dream of a permanent international criminal court,
once and for all.
Donald
Devine, former director Of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management,
is a columnist and a Washington-based policy consultant and a Vice Chairman
for the American Conservative Union.
