US warming to criminal court

After years of criticizing and rejecting the International Criminal Court (ICC), the US is showing signs of warming to the UN body.

The ICC is the first permanent institution authorized to try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes when national courts are unable or unwilling to do so.

The US was concerned that US servicemen hunting down terrorists abroad might not be safe from politically-motivated ICC prosecutions. That concern remains, but the administration is indicating a somewhat more benevolent view of the ICC these days.

At the time of its founding in 2002, the court presented a fat target for many in the US Congress and the Bush administration.

Then Senator Jesse Helms thundered that the ICC was "an international kangaroo court."

Former Congressman Tom DeLay called it "a shady amalgam of every bad idea ever cooked up for world government."

While standing by its core opposition to ICC's claimed jurisdiction over Americans, the administration of US President George W. Bush has noted with satisfaction that the court has swatted aside efforts by some groups to encourage ICC prosecutions of US troops in Iraq and other theatres of conflict.

It also has relaxed sanctions imposed on ICC member countries that have refused to sign agreements with the US to forbid ICC prosecutions of Americans on their territory.

The most obvious example of an American climbdown on the ICC concerns Sudan. Last year, the administration dropped a long-running effort to create a "hybrid" UN-African Union court to try Sudanese war criminals, deciding instead to accept ICC jurisdiction in the country.

"At least as a matter of policy, not only do we not oppose the ICC's investigation and prosecutions in Sudan but we support its investigation and prosecution of those atrocities," said John Bellinger, the State Department's top legal adviser.