LONDON: The Americans were not always like this. In defence of the US’s refusal to sign on to the international criminal court (ICC), it has been argued that international tribunals are a typically European idea which clashes with American notions of democracy. But this argument shows a profound ignorance of history. For international justice is as much an American as a European idea, if not more so.

The phrase “international law” was coined by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Like human rights, it was a product of the European Enlightenment. But the laws of war were first codified in the US, during the civil war. It was these American laws which formed the basis of the Convention With Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed in 1899 by 19 European nations, Japan, Siam, Persia, Mexico and the US.

International institutions are another bugbear of the current American administration. Again, the US is now seen as the rugged individualist among nations. But it was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who fathered the League of Nations in a wildly idealistic attempt to secure world peace. To complicate the picture, it was the same President Wilson who opposed Anglo-French demands for an international war-crimes trial in 1918. He was afraid that trying Kaiser Bill and his generals would lead to “victors’ justice.”

In 1945, however, the positions were reversed. Churchill and Eden wanted to put the Nazi leaders against the wall and shoot them, while the Americans pressed for an international tribunal. As usual, the Americans got their way, and the first international war-crimes trial took place in Nuremberg.

Without this, there would never have been an ICC. Henry L Stimson, the secretary of war, and presidents Roosevelt and Truman were firm believers in international institutions such as war-crimes tribunals and the United Nations. Consultation and multilateralism, in their view, were the proper ways to establish a humane world order. If he had still been around, Woodrow Wilson would have been proud of them.

So what the hell went wrong? In the first place, the Americans in 1945 could never have imagined that they might one day be tripped up by their own idealism.

In both world wars, the Americans were late and rather reluctant participants. Most Americans wanted to be left alone. They felt, understandably, that they had been dragged into conflicts unleashed by bellicose Europeans too often, and they were tired of this. So were most Europeans (and Japanese, for that matter).

The aim after 1945, then, was to pacify Europe. That was the goal that drove the European Economic Community, as well as the postwar security arrangements.

During the cold war, the main thing was to keep the Russians out and the Germans down. The US participated gladly in international institutions that made this possible. They encouraged European unification. As long as the Europeans kept their minds on prosperity and off war, it was a good thing. If there were wars to be fought, the Americans would handle that. The Europeans would be left alone. As a result, the old roles were reversed. Now it was Europeans, not all of the left, who were afraid that bellicose Americans would disturb our pacific slumber.

Multilateralism and peaceful internationalism has become a kind of European white man’s burden, a mission civilisatrice. The ICC is as much part of EU idealism as of the UN. It cuts little ice with the Russians or the Chinese, but Europeans believe in it. It is a fine ideal, and if the whole world were like western Europe it would work very well.

Alas, our peaceful EU is not well equipped to deal with gangsters — before they come to court. Against a Milosevic it proved to be useless. Only American power saved millions of Bosnian lives.

However, now that the Russians are down and out, the natural deference to American leadership is harder to maintain. For an alliance to work, you need a common enemy. And many Europeans don’t see Iraq as a common enemy.

Instead, that nagging fear of being dragged into wars by bellicose America, of being rudely wrenched from our peaceful dreams, is growing. But this is the fear of the powerless bystander. One reason for wanting the US to be part of the ICC, or other international institutions, is to check its power and curb its excesses. Perhaps even to pacify it. At the same time, we expect the US to do the dirty work for us. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.