I Guess We Can Have It Both Ways

We'll, we're back after an extended holiday hiatus. Hopefully Cassandra and Hector will be more able to contribute, as to a certain extent, some of their time constraints have receded.

Today, I was struck by this AP article, which describes our shifting attitude towards the International Criminal Court, or ICC. The ICC is essentially an international judicial body, created under the auspices of the UN, which claims universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and the like. The thought in its creation was essentially to provide a venue to bring people to justice who otherwise would go free due to either an inability or unwillingness on the part of a particular State's judicial system to prosecute them.

The US has largely resisted the jurisdictional claims of the ICC and had even gone so far as to impose sanctions on other States who refused to sign bilateral agreements with the US pledging not to serve up Americans on their soil for prosecution by the ICC should they be indicted. The Administration's concern (which I share, incidentally) is that the ICC could be used maliciously as a way to mount politically motivated prosecutions of Americans.

What I found so interesting was the Administration's apparent new willingness to endorse the ICC when it is going after people which they dislike, while simultaneously bad-mouthing it as it pertains to Americans. They have voiced their approval of using the ICC to prosecute officials in Sudan as well as members of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.

I don't expect complete policy consistency on the part of any government, as the world is just too complex and too nuanced to expect as much. Nevertheless, I think in a time where aspects of America's moral legitimacy are being loudly, and to some extent, responsibly criticized, it seems we are only adding to our troubles by explicitly holding ourselves to a lower standard.

Of course, that's not how it's spun by the Administration. They contend that we have a robust judicial system is place which is able to prosecute any offenses committed on the part of Americans. Unfortunately, if the recently passed Military Commissions Act is any indicator, I think their principal aim may be to provide cover for Americans thereby making our protestations with respect to the ICC somewhat suspect in their ingenuousness.