US Warming to the ICC

Jess Bavin has another informative piece on the ICC in today’s WSJ, noting the warming trend of the US toward the ICC:

That new approach will be on display today, when the ICC’s chief prosecutor reports to the United Nations Security Council on his investigation into alleged war crimes in Darfur. The U.S., which now considers the ICC perhaps the only chance to bring Darfur war criminals to justice, will attend the briefing. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, for years among the ICC’s harshest critics, will send a deputy.

The move comes as the Bush administration softens its stance toward multilateral diplomacy on many fronts, seen most recently in the decision to offer negotiations with Iran.

U.S. officials concede they can’t delegitimize a court that now counts 100 member countries, including such allies as Australia, Britain and Canada. While insisting the Bush administration will never allow Americans to be tried by the court, “we do acknowledge that it has a role to play in the overall system of international justice,” John Bellinger, the State Department’s chief lawyer, said in an interview.

That is a far cry from the tone President Bush took during his 2004 re-election campaign, when he blasted the court during a presidential debate. “It’s a body based in The Hague where unaccountable judges and prosecutors can pull our troops or diplomats up for trial,” he said. “I just think trying to be popular, kind of, in the global sense, if it’s not in our best interest makes no sense.”

In a May speech, Mr. Bellinger said “divisiveness over the ICC distracts from our ability to pursue these common goals” of fighting genocide and crimes against humanity.

The US seems to have finally recognized the high diplomatic cost of protesting the ICC now that the court is a reality. The court is also a convenient tool for supporting legal action (e.g., investigations into crimes in Darfur) that may detract from the international community’s failure or unwillingness to take stronger political action (e.g., putting together an effective military force to stop the atrocities in Darfur). For his part, prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo appears to be doing an excellent job balancing the need for US support and cooperation against pressure from those who would like to see the US somehow punished for its failure to join the ICC. Not an easy task.

Increased US involvement and support for the ICC can only be a positive development for an institution that has a tough road ahead to fulfill its promise of being both a necessary and effective means to achieve justice.