U.S. accuses Russia of war crimes but undermines the international body that prosecutes war crimes
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has formally accused the Russian Federation of committing war crimes in Ukraine, saying in an official statement yesterday that Russian forces have “destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded.” Blinken also stressed that the U.S. is “committed to pursuing accountability using every tool available, including criminal prosecutions.”
There is only one problem though. Since the U.S. has for the past 20 years systematically undermined, cajoled and threatened the primary international institution for prosecuting war crimes – The Hague-based International Criminal Court – its calls for accountability ring hollow and smack of hypocrisy. How does the United States now expect prosecutions for war crimes to proceed against Russia when it has dismissed the ICC’s legitimacy at every turn?
Perhaps this is why Blinken studiously avoided mentioning the ICC by name in his statement yesterday. Although the ICC is the obvious venue to pursue war crimes charges against the Russian Federation, Blinken spoke instead in rather vague terms about the need for judicial review by “a court of law with jurisdiction over the crime” and pledged that the U.S. “will share information we gather with allies, partners, and international institutions and organizations, as appropriate.”
The ICC, which was established by the Rome State in 2002 on the principle of complementarity – meaning that it only exercises its jurisdiction when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals – opened an investigation into accusations of war crimes in Ukraine days after the Russian invasion began.
In a statement issued March 11 about the ICC’s work in Ukraine, prosecutor Karim Khan said:
My Office has responded immediately to this unprecedented collective call for action by States Parties. The investigative team that I deployed to the region last week has already commenced evidence-collection activities. I am also personally seeking to engage with all relevant stakeholders and parties to the conflict with the aim of strengthening channels for the collection of relevant information and engendering coordinated action towards our common goal of ensuring accountability for crimes falling within ICC jurisdiction.
International criminal investigations require the engagement of all those who may hold information relevant to our work. Witnesses, survivors and affected communities in particular must be empowered to actively contribute to our investigations. There can be no bystanders in our effort to establish the truth and pursue those allegedly responsible for international crimes.
Considering the fact that there is a major effort underway to collect evidence of war crimes in Ukraine by the only international institution with the mandate and jurisdiction to carry out prosecutions of this nature, it is curious that Blinken did not mention the ICC by name in his statement. This omission was surely no accident – instead it reflects the rather awkward position the U.S. finds itself in of calling for prosecutions of Russian war crimes but not recognizing the legitimacy of the international body mandated to prosecute war crimes. Along with Russia, the U.S. is one of just a dozen countries that have declined to sign up to the court’s jurisdiction.
The problem for the United States, of course, is that it is also guilty of countless war crimes and if there was a powerful international institution that could effectively prosecute these crimes, many U.S. officials could find themselves in the dock at The Hague. Recognizing this possibility, in 2002 Congress passed the American Service Members Protection Act, otherwise known as the Hague Invasion Act. This law prohibits the extradition of Americans to the ICC and authorizes the U.S. the right to extract any American held at the court in The Hague.
While some dismissed this as far-fetched at the time, the possibility became more real when, in 2007, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that the ICC could investigate war crimes stemming from the conduct of U.S. forces in Iraq, if Iraq agreed to ratify the Rome Statute and accede to ICC jurisdiction.
Unfortunately, Iraq never did ratify the Rome Statute, and therefore no investigations of U.S. war criminals could proceed, but the ICC did examine allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq by ICC-member United Kingdom.
In 2017, the ICC opened a preliminary investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, including crimes committed by the U.S. armed forces and the CIA. On March 5, 2020, the Appeals Chamber authorized the Prosecutor to commence an investigation, which led the U.S. to impose sanctions on senior officials of the ICC, including chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the time that the ICC is “a thoroughly broken and corrupted institution” and “we will not tolerate its illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction.”
The United Nations was dismayed over the U.S. sanctions on the ICC, with Secretary General António Guterres expressing concern and UN Special Rapporteur Diego García-Sayán saying that these policies have “the sole aim of exerting pressure on an institution whose role is to seek justice against crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.”
Now, after two decades of exerting this pressure and threatening the ICC’s independence, the U.S. finds itself in the delicate position of highlighting Russian war crimes and urging prosecutions, but dogmatically subverting the legitimacy of the institution mandated to do so.
For more on the work of the ICC, please visit the website of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.
Global condemnation of Russia’s war on Ukraine underscores international community’s hypocrisy
The international condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been resounding, with economic sanctions, boycotts and a cacophony of strongly worded denunciations calling the attack an unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression. Following a week of condemnations pouring in from regional organizations such as the EU and OSCE, as well as national governments around the world, the near unanimity of the international sentiment was expressed most clearly in a UN General Assembly resolution adopted yesterday by a vote of 141-5, with 35 abstentions.
In the General Assembly’s resolution, adopted at an emergency session convened under the UN’s “Uniting for Peace” mechanism, the UN:
1. Reaffirms its commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters;
2. Deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in violation of Article 2 (4) of the Charter;
3. Demands that the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine and to refrain from any further unlawful threat or use of force against any Member State;
While on one hand, this can be seen as a powerful statement strongly supporting a country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity while condemning acts of aggression as illegitimate, the General Assembly resolution also serves as a powerful reminder of the selectiveness of the international community’s outrage.
Anyone old enough to remember the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 – a naked act of aggression based on a much flimsier pretext than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – should recall that the response of the international community was far more muted. There were individual governments that did oppose the invasion – most notably, Germany, France and Russia who together blocked a UN Security Council authorization for the invasion – but in general the criticisms were mild in comparison to the outcry from the international community that we are seeing today.
The relative silence 19 years ago from the planet’s ruling elite stood in marked contrast to the loud calls for peace from the planet’s people, who over the course of several months in late 2002 and early 2003 organized the largest global demonstrations ever in human history. These demonstrators, numbering in the tens of millions, were pleading with their elected governments to do whatever was in their power to stop the unprovoked US invasion of Iraq, but for the most part those pleas fell on deaf ears.
One of the main calls from protest organizers back then was for the UN to convene an emergency session of the General Assembly under Uniting for Peace. The US-based Center for Constitutional Rights even drafted a proposed “Uniting for Peace” resolution that governments could submit to the General Assembly, declaring that US military action against Iraq without a Security Council resolution was contrary to the UN Charter and international law.
But in contrast to the quick action by UN Member States this week, back then they completely ignored their responsibility to uphold international peace and the UN Charter. In fact, the Uniting for Peace mechanism is invoked so rarely, that the UN’s press release on this week’s General Assembly session noted that it has only been implemented “11 or 12 times since the adoption of General Assembly resolution 377 (V) on 3 November 1950, depending on how one characterises the first case.” The last time it was invoked was 1997.
This hypocrisy should be kept squarely in mind when listening governments today boldly call out Russia for its act of aggression against Ukraine. Now these world leaders and diplomats are falling over each other jostling for position in front of the cameras of the global media to loudly proclaim their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine, but many of these people were curiously silent two decades ago when the US carried out an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state which led to deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, destroyed the nation, and included countless war crimes and atrocities.
Today, these self-serving hypocrites have found their voices in calling for peace, but they only do so because it is politically safe. In denouncing Russia’s war today, they are on the side of the US empire, so there is no price to pay in denouncing military aggression. But when the US launches its next illegal war, these voices will likely fall silent once again.
Compliance Campaign 