A war crimes court

The many nations that approved formation of a permanent international criminal court created an instrument to prosecute selected genocides, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The few that voted against, including the United States, can enjoy whatever benefits these proceedings may bring -- without compromising their objections to some of the particulars.

Was the United States right to stay out? The Clinton administration made a decision consistent with American interests. There is some embarrassment in rejecting a court whose establishment had been an American goal for decades. But the form this court finally took did not make it possible for the United States to join.

American troops are liable to be deployed around the globe to support a variety of foreign policy interests. To ensure that these troops enjoy the requisite flexibility and are not vulnerable to mischievous political prosecutions -- think of the snatch of General Manuel Noriega in Panama -- is a necessary feature of American internationalism. No doubt a general emphasis on the immunity of one's own soldiers would carve out the heart of an international court. But it appears that there are dozens of countries -- although perhaps not all those considered most criminally prone -- prepared to open up to its terms.

American detachment from an international court grants the United States no license for war crimes. The American political process and judicial system build in their own checks. Some nations will hide behind the American example to evade responsibility for criminal violations. But that is less reason for the United States to join than to exercise other means of deterrence and justice. These include political/military leadership and situational judicial devices such as the Rwanda and Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal.

War crimes are perpetrated not because of the absence of a particular instrument but because of a shortage of political will in the use of available instruments. And because of an excess of political cynicism: The nations defining the new court cheapened it by accepting Egypt's insistence on identifying Israel's construction of West Bank settlements as a war crime.

-- The Washington Post