I am referring to the irrepressible John Bolton, the US National Security adviser, who has threatened sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it goes ahead with
prosecutions against Americans.
Bolton swiftly reacted when the ICC announced it was considering prosecuting US servicemen over alleged detainee abuses in Afghanistan.
Bolton called the court “illegitimate” and vowed the US would do everything “to protect our citizens.” The US is one of dozens of nations that did not join the court.
White House BBC reporter Tara Mckelvey reported that Bolton, as a diplomat, was “famously bellicose: he once said if the United Nation building in New York ‘lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.’”
Mckelvey said Bolton “has made clear how he stands on carrot-and-stick diplomacy, saying: ‘I don’t do carrots.’ As national security adviser, he’s been more aggressive than the president at times—and has been reined in.” In threatening to take action against ICC judges, Mr. Bolton showed he’s in sync with President Trump’s “America First” policy, said Mckelvey.
Established by a UN treaty in 2002, and has been ratified by 123 countries, including the United Kingdom, the ICC investigates, prosecutes and hails to court “people responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute.”
Several countries, including China, India and Russia, did not join the ICC, while some countries have called for withdrawal from the court over unfair treatment of their citizens.
The latest of these withdrawals was the Philippines, a signatory to the ICC treaty, when President Rodrigo Duterte dropped the country’s membership after the ICC started investigating him over alleged extra-judicial killings in the war against drugs, terrorism and other high-value crimes.
But while Mr. Duterte was facing squarely the problem by dropping the country’s ICC membership, some of his officials who were supposed to be in sync with him were just posturing and often seen in photos with him in self-importance but actually doing nothing to help him despite the spreading misinformation, including fake news, initiated by the political opposition and its media supporters, using extrapolated figures to create a bad image for Duterte and the country.
Actually, the Philippines is just a small dot in the worldwide war against drug traffickers compared to other countries, but the ICC has shown its unusual degree of interest and allowed some of President Duterte’s political enemies, including those pretending to be human- rights crusaders, to torpedo his effort against drug traffickers and other dregs who have victimized innocent people and destroyed families.
Mexico, for example, is one of the countries in worse situation in the drug war with over 150,000 deaths since 2006, and the body count still keeps on increasing, according to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report on organized crime-related incidents, and Mexican drug cartels take in between $19 billion and $29 billion annually from drug sales in the US.
But in Mexico, you don’t see politicians from the opposition hitting and needlessly blaming the government because they all put the interest of their country at heart, unlike here in our country where many politicians continuously demonize Duterte for political and economic expediency without realizing they are damaging the country and becoming part of the problem.
In Mexico, for instance, when the International Institute for Strategic Studies ranked it as the second deadliest country in the world, ahead of war zones such as Afghanistan and Yemen, its officials responded angrily and pointed to higher murder rates in Brazil and Venezuela.
In the US, if there’s anything to learn, it is that Bolton has been particularly vocal in his opposition to the ICC and his attack on two areas of the court’s activities. The first was ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s request last year for a full investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, which would include those allegedly committed by US military and intelligence officials, and the second was the Palestinian move to bring Israel before the ICC over allegations of human-rights abuses in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, a move dismissed by Israel as political.
In his tirade against the court, Mr. Bolton said it:
- Was a threat to “American sovereignty and US national security;”
- Lacked checks and balances and “jurisdiction over crimes that have disputed and ambiguous definitions” and failed to “deter and punish atrocity crimes;” and
- Was “superfluous” as the US administration did “not recognize any higher authority than the US Constitution.”
“We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us,” Bolton said.
White House Spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders backed Mr. Bolton, saying President Donald J. Trump would use “any means necessary to protect our citizens [and] those of our allies from unjust prosecution from the ICC.”
Lessons learned from the US
“ICC judges and prosecutors would be barred from entering the US, and their funds in the US would be targeted.
“We will prosecute them in the US criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.
“More ‘binding, bilateral agreements’ would be signed to stop countries submitting US citizens to the court’s jurisdiction.”
In retrospect, Duterte need not have to worry because citizens in this country will support him in his campaign against drug traffickers, peddlers and users. What he should worry about is the presence of mediocre and inept officials doing nothing at all to help him effectively govern.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.