April 11, 2001

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Join Criminal Court

To the editors:

In response to The Crimson’s editorial, I wanted to point to the inherent hypocrisy in the argument calling for international justice. While I understand the point that in the aftermath of the Kosovo conflict, it is necessary to send a clear message to the international community that violence (and especially group-targeted violence) remains an absolutely unacceptable method of solving problems, the message that the staff proposes is highly hypocritical.

To this day, the U.S. remains the most vehement and outspoken opponent of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which would be the successor of the various International Criminal Tribunals set up in the past and would institute a permanent body that would oversee international justice with regard to crimes against humanity. The main reasons given for America’s unwavering opposition are that the ICC would endanger thousands of U.S. personnel stationed throughout the world in carrying out their duties, and the unofficial pervasive feeling that U.S. personnel should only be subject to U.S. judicial authority (a point made again and again by the U.S. military’s handling of all recent “legal troubles” encountered by its personnel abroad).

In this sense, the message being sent by requesting unconditional extradition of Milosevic is one of two different yardsticks, which makes for a very weak imitation of international justice. If international justice is what we are really looking for, then not only should we first allow the Yugoslav judicial system to prosecute Milosevic (carefully following the process and deciding after its conclusions whether further prosecution by the International Criminal Tribunal is necessary) but, more importantly, the U.S. government should reexamine its opposition with regard to the ICC and send out a clear message that international justice is indeed the goal.