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.
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