"And if you agree with OhioGuy, do you oppose US invasion of Afghanistan/Iraq?"
I believe that the invasion was just fine, as with or without a court Saddam had to go, the Taliban was not much better.
BUT, an indictment of Saddam might have one more diplomatic avenue to get him to step down and avoid a war. Not that I think that he would have, but it would have given more moral weight to the arguement of Arab states that called for him to step down to avoid the deaths of innocents.
When an animal like Saddam is unidicted by any world body, and Tommy Franks, who does NOT enjoy the deaths of innocents, and goes to great lengths to avoid civilian injury and death is indicted in some half baked Belgian Court, then something is VERY wrong with the world justice system.
Methinks you don’t really understand the scope of jurisdiction of the ICJ.
This excerpt is from its own website"
"The Court is competent to entertain a dispute only if the States concerned have accepted its jurisdiction in one or more of the following ways:
by the conclusion between them of a special agreement to submit the dispute to the Court;
by virtue of a jurisdictional clause, i.e., typically, when they are parties to a treaty containing a provision whereby, in the event of a disagreement over its interpretation or application, one of them may refer the dispute to the Court. Several hundred treaties or conventions contain a clause to such effect;
through the reciprocal effect of declarations made by them under the Statute whereby each has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court as compulsory in the event of a dispute with another State having made a similar declaration. The declarations of 63 States are at present in force, a number of them having been made subject to the exclusion of certain categories of dispute. "
http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/igeneralinformation/icjgnnot.html
In other words, the ICJ only has jurisdiction over disputes and countries that the countries involved have consented to. As long as the countries involved have consented to the jurisdiction, it works for me. Certain international disputes involving the US could be and have been submitted to the World Court.
I believe you may though be referring to the ICC (so called “International Criminal Court”) rather than the ICJ. The US has NOT ratified the treaty which would submit the US to the jurisdiction of the ICC. I hope we never do. IMO, it would be a mistake.
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*Originally posted by myvoice: *
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I believe you may though be referring to the ICC (so called "International Criminal Court") rather than the ICJ. The US has NOT ratified the treaty which would submit the US to the jurisdiction of the ICC. I hope we never do. IMO, it would be a mistake.
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Okay, may be I was wrong in picking a court. You pointed towards ICC. Now why would it be a mistake for US?
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*Originally posted by Changez_like: *
Okay, may be I was wrong in picking a court. You pointed towards ICC. Now why would it be a mistake for US?
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mistake in a way that then almost whole of its military & government would be in jail for commiting crimes against humanity :-)