President Obama, What’s Your ICC Policy?
by paco on 04 Nov 2009 | Comments
Today marks one year since that joyous night when we elected Obama to take our country in new directions. I was hoping, and felt sure, that one of those new directions would be a policy of engagement with the International Criminal Court. Many administration appointments looked promising for developing a positive ICC policy: Samantha Power as Director of Multilateral Affairs at the National Security Council, Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Harold Koh as the State Department’s top legal advisor and Stephen Rapp as Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes - what a pro-international justice line-up! On March 4 of this year, the ICC issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, charging him with crimes against humanity and war crimes, and yet we still have no clear picture of what the Obama administration policy is toward the ICC. Ambassador Susan Rice made a clear statement of support for the ICC warrant but that was followed by a policy of “normalizing relations” and a “carrot & stick” (but what are the carrots and what are the sticks?) approach expressed by Obama Sudan envoy Scott Gration. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Kenya she stated that “it is a great regret that the U.S. isn’t part of the ICC”. When the UN Human Rights Council Goldstone Report on Gaza was released Susan Rice expressed “serious concerns” about the report, but failed to say what those concerns are. So President Obama, what is your ICC policy? A year since your election gone by, the ICC is in full swing with several crucial cases, and we don’t know what to expect from you. Will the U.S. have a representative at the Assembly of States Parties of the ICC later this month? Will the U.S. attend the Review Conference of the Rome Statute next May in Kampala? It’s time to stop equivocating about the ICC.
