The U.S. should become a positive, responsible member of the world community. Join and respect the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Trump keeps rebuffing the rest of the world by withdrawing the U.S. from treaties (the INF treaty limiting nuclear weapons, the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate deal, etc., etc., etc.)  Now he is hostile toward the International Criminal Court (ICC).

On March 15, 2019, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. will deny or revoke visas for International Criminal Court staff.  This rude rebuff is intended to impede a potential investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

More than 120 other nations have signed on to the Rome Statute of the ICC.  The U.S. has never joined the ICC.  Trump’s increased hostility to the ICC exposes as blatant hypocrisy the U.S.’s self-image as a defender of human rights and a responsible member of the world community.

For more information, see this article from the non-profit organization Citizens for Global Solutions:  https://globalsolutions.org/us-needs-to-support-icc-not-undermine-it/

ALSO SEE THIS ADDITIONAL ARTICLE ON THE SAME TOPIC:

“America’s Menacing Defiance of International Justice” is the title of a March 28, 2019, article at  https://www.truthdig.com/articles/americas-menacing-defiance-of-international-justice/

This article says that in the midst of much other news, many people probably failed to notice Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s attack in international law.  Pompeo called the ICC (unofficially known as the “World Court”) “illegitimate” because it would like to hold the U.S. accountable for violating international law.  Some people implementing U.S. policy are actually “war criminals,” but Trump — like Reagan — thinks the U.S. should be exempt from international accountability.

The U.S. Constitution provides that treaties and international law are also the supreme law of the U.S.

The particular case that prompted this now arose from the U.S.’s “black sites” where our nation committed war crimes against individuals as part of the U.S.’s war in Afghanistan and “war on terror.”

The U.S. never ratified the treaty that created the International Criminal Court.  But U.S. personnel are NOT IMMUNE from ICC prosecution because — although the crimes did not occur in the U.S. — the crimes did occur in other countries that DID ratify the treaty.  These include Afghanistan, Poland, Romania and Lithuania.

This article is informative, so I encourage people to read it.  Again, it is at this link:  https://www.truthdig.com/articles/americas-menacing-defiance-of-international-justice/

 

 

 

 

About GlenAnderson 1499 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org