The International Criminal Court Why We Need It, How We Got It, Our Concern about It

I have been following the establishment of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) as called for in the Treaty of Rome since I first began teaching an elective, Morality and War: Implications for the War Fighter, here at the Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) in January 2000. I have found the process to be quite interesting. Almost from the beginning, my thoughts harkened back to what I believe Winston Churchill was warning us about the future. As I remember it, his words were something like, "Be ever mindful of the ghost of Nuremberg coming back to haunt us." This notion haunts us today. According to author Bradley Smith, it was at America's insistence that the victorious Allies conducted the trials at Nuremberg and in the Pacific as well. Stalin, who realized the value of "show" courts, was enthusiastic. Churchill was less so, fearing the implications, and Charles de Gaulle, well de Gaulle was de Gaulle. The Germans never accepted the results as legitimate. Since the conclusion of those trials over 50 years ago, the United States has been at the forefront, leading the fight for a permanent criminal tribunal, only to end up opposed to one when the details were penned to paper. It always is in the details, isn't it? The Plenipotentiaries convened in Rome from 15 June until 17 July 1998 to negotiate and draft what became the Treaty of Rome, establishing the permanent ICC. The participants included 160 states, 33 intergovernmental organizations, and 236 nongovernmental organizations. When all was said and done, there were 120 states voting in favor of the treaty, seven against it, and 21 abstentions. There is no record about the 22 other states in attendance. Interestingly, the United States, which had been pushing for a permanent court, and which was instrumental in establishing the Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, voted against the treaty. However, America's allies-the French, British, and Russians-voted for the treaty on the last day of the