[casi] U.N. expected to exempt U.S. from suits by new court

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2881174

U.N. expected to exempt U.S. from suits by new court

Thu June 5, 2003 03:58 AM ET
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - With major powers loathe to do battle with
Washington again, the U.N. Security Council is expected this month to
renew its exemption of Americans peacekeepers from prosecution by the
new war crimes tribunal.

The council a year ago approved a resolution that shielded Americans
serving in U.N.-approved peacekeeping missions from prosecution by the
International Criminal Court until July 1. The 15-0 vote came after the
Bush administration threatened to close down U.N. peacekeeping missions,
starting with Bosnia.

This year, diplomats say, the resolution is expected to be extended for
another year, unless the United States makes new demands, but it is
uncertain if the vote will be unanimous.

At the same time, several nations in the council and elsewhere,
including Germany, Jordan, Canada, Mexico, are contemplating a public
debate to warn the United States of the alleged illegality of the
resolution and not to take renewals for granted in the future, the
envoys said.

"The council is in too fragile a state to put it through another meat
grinder," one key ambassador said, referring to a bruising fight over
the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. "But such renewals should not be
automatic."

Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch, a strong advocate of the court,
said efforts were underway for an open meeting.

"Whether or not the Security Council is intimidated into approving it
again or not is somewhat besides the point," he said in an interview.
"What is crucial is that there is a principle state of opposition to
this unlawful resolution so that the door is open for its ultimate
appeal."

The court, whose treaty has been ratified by 90 nations, came into being
more than a year ago, despite fierce opposition by the United States and
is expected to function later this year in The Hague, Netherlands. Its
prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, will be sworn in next week.

As the first permanent global criminal court, the ICC was set up to try
individuals for the world's most heinous atrocities -- genocide, war
crimes and systematic human rights abuses -- in a belated effort to
fulfill the promise of the Nuremberg trials 57 years ago that prosecuted
Nazi leaders for war crimes.

Among its chief advocates are European Union nations, especially
Germany, which has a seat on the council this year. But the United
States fears its soldiers could be the target of politically-motivated
prosecutions while the court's supporters argue that perpetrators of
major crimes can only be pursued when national governments are unwilling
or unable to do so.

In the meantime, the United States sought to negotiate bilateral
agreements with more than 150 countries that would prohibit the
surrender of U.S. citizens to the court. Some 34 such accords have been
signed so far.

Mexico's U.N. ambassador, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, said he suggested to
Security Council members that the new court immediately pursue
perpetrators of the recent massacres in the eastern Democratic Republic
of the Congo.

"They are very bloody killings of women, they are raping, tearing apart
two-year-old girls," he said.

The council a year ago adopted a text that fell short of U.S. demands
for blanket immunity from the court but saved U.N. peacekeeping missions
from American threats to veto them, one by one.





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