Trump administration threatens sanctions against International Criminal Court
The Trump administration announced Monday that it would retaliate against the International Criminal Court (ICC), a judicial panel established under the auspices of the United Nations, if the ICC took any action against US military or civilian officials over charges of war crimes in Afghanistan.
The announcement was made by National Security Advisor John Bolton in a speech to the Federalist Society, the corporate-financed association of ultra-right lawyers and judges that has vetted President Trump’s two nominations to the US Supreme Court.
Bolton took the occasion of an appearance before a group of lawyers to declare the US government’s defiance of any constraint on its actions under international law, which he characterized as an attack on American sovereignty. His main concern was not so much for front-line soldiers, as for the decision-makers, from military commanders on the battlefield to war planners and strategists in Washington, right up to the White House itself, who he said were in danger of being “intimidated” by the threat of war crimes charges.
In rejecting the ICC the Trump administration has not adopted a new policy. When the body was first created in 2002 under an accord signed in Rome, the Bush administration repudiated it, and Congress quickly passed legislation by huge bipartisan margins. The new law, the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, had as its goal “to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not a party.”
Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/11/bolt-s11.html
