France said it expected the UN Security Council to vote yesterday on a resolution that would authorize the prosecution of Sudanese war crimes suspects by the International Criminal Court -- with approval virtually certain after US officials said Washington had dropped its objections.
France delayed Wednesday's vote in hopes of averting a US veto -- and the additional time appears to have won over the Americans.
Administration officials in Washington said on Wednesday night that the US was dropping its objections to using the court after concluding that opposition to the US stand was too strong, particularly among Europeans.
France's UN mission said on Wednesday night that it expected the council to vote on the resolution yesterday, probably in the afternoon.
US President George W. Bush's administration had preferred that an African court try alleged perpetrators of war crimes, but the US proposal garnered little support among the 14 other Security Council nations.
The US faced a dilemma because it wants the perpetrators of atrocities in Sudan's western Darfur region brought to justice but it vehemently opposes the International Criminal Court on grounds that Americans could face politically motivated or frivolous prosecutions. An ethnic cleansing campaign in Darfur has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 2 million.
In return for its concession, the US received assurances that Americans deployed in Sudan, in whatever capacity, would not be subject to ICC prosecutions, the officials told reporters. They asked not to be identified because the decision has not been officially announced.
The US decision to allow the court to prosecute war crimes perpetrators could raise hackles among conservatives for whom the court is an unaccountable body that cannot be trusted to do the right thing. The 97 countries that have ratified the 1998 Rome Treaty establishing the court based in The Hague, Netherlands -- including all European Union nations -- maintain that there are sufficient safeguards built into the process to prevent unwarranted prosecutions.
France agreed to postpone a vote until yesterday after the US said it wanted to amend the draft resolution to ensure that no Americans could be handed over to the court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, UN diplomats said.
The US came up with amendments late yesterday but the diplomats said they weren't acceptable to the nine council members that are parties to the court, including France and close US ally Britain.
In response, France drafted new amendments which were to be shared with the court's supporters overnight and discussed with the Americans yesterday, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The 15 Security Council nations have been deadlocked for weeks on the issue of holding people accountable in Sudan, and the court's supporters have demanded a vote on the French resolution.
The French draft introduced last week would refer Darfur cases since July 1, 2002 to the International Criminal Court. That was the recommendation of a UN panel that had found crimes against humanity -- but not genocide -- occurred in the vast western region.
In a clear concession to the US, the resolution said citizens of countries that have not ratified the treaty establishing the court will not be subject to prosecution by the court if they take part in activities in Sudan.
Diplomats said Washington was concerned that the language wasn't airtight and therefore proposed the amendments.
Details of the final text were not disclosed in Washington or New York.
Negotiations on the draft have been going on in key capitals, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw trying to agree on wording that would allow the US to abstain rather than veto the resolution, the diplomats said.
A veto could be politically damaging because it would give the appearance that the US opposed the punishment of those responsible for atrocities in Darfur, the scene of perhaps the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The widespread death and des-truction has been the result of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign led by government-supported Arab militias against black African rebels. The conflict began in February 2003, and the number of dead is now estimated at 180,000.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS