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UNITED NATIONS, July 11: France began on Thursday a campaign to provide an alternative to a US proposal that its troops be exempted from prosecution in front of the International Criminal Court, UN sources said.
A French diplomat said the French proposal “better respected the spirit and the letter” of the 1998 treaty signed in Rome to create the court, the first permanent body to try war crimes that will convene in The Hague in about a year’s time.
It would grant immunity on a case-by-case basis to those non-signatories to the treaty, which include the United States, China, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States has found itself increasingly isolated in the United Nations for its decision to abandon president Bill Clinton’s December 2000 signature to the Rome statute, which was signed by 138 other nations and ratified by 76 among them.
US SOFTENS DEMAND: After a day of fierce criticism from its closest allies, the Bush administration softened demands for blanket immunity for American peacekeepers from the world’s first permanent criminal court.
The new US proposal, to be discussed by UN Security Council members on Thursday, would prevent the investigation or prosecution of peacekeepers for a year, subject to renewal.
Previously Washington demanded a permanent exemption from the tribunal’s jurisdiction for soldiers from countries that had not ratified a 1998 Rome treaty creating the International Criminal Court, which came into existence on July 1.
Nevertheless, many of the Security Council’s 14 other members said the new US draft resolution still violated the letter and spirit of the court’s treaty.
But the US modification was the first indication that a resolution of the dispute, in which the United States threatened to shut down all UN peacekeeping missions, might be resolved soon.
MORE CHANGES POSSIBLE: Unclear is whether the US proposal will be adopted without more changes. Britain’s UN ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said the draft was “a very fair basis for discussions.”
French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte told colleagues it was “a step” on in the right direction but fell short of getting his country’s support. But he has not threatened a veto.
France and Britain belong to the European Union, all of whose 15 members have ratified the court’s treaty. Both nations, along with the United States, Russia and China, have veto power on the Security Council.
On Wednesday, Canada organized an open meeting so countries around the world could tell Security Council members the US proposals were unacceptable.And some two dozen nations did so, from Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East as well as the European Union.
Only India took Washington’s side.
“We have just emerged from a century that witnessed the evils of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin, and the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia,” Canadian Ambassador Paul Heinbecker said.
“Surely, we have all learned the fundamental lesson of this bloodiest of centuries, which is that impunity from prosecution for grievous crimes must end,” he said.—Reuters
Our correspondent adds: Under intense pressure from the international community, the United States on Wednesday backed off from its demand that its peacekeepers be given permanent immunity from the International Criminal Court which started functioning last week.
Instead through a draft resolution the US proposed a one-year moratorium for any investigations of its peacekeepers, following an open debate in the UN Security Council where some 40 countries lambasted the United States for seeking to be “above the law.’ Only India offered some sympathy to the US position.
The United States earlier had threatened to end UN peacekeeping if it didn’t get open-ended immunity for peacekeepers from countries that have not ratified the Rome treaty establishing the court, which came into existence on July 1. The treaty has been signed by 138 countries and ratified by 76, including all 15 members of the European Union.
