In September 1947, prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz stood before a tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany to make the case against 22 Nazis accused of massacring more than a million innocent people. ?We shall establish beyond the realm of doubt that the slaughter committed by these defendants was dictated not by military necessity but that supreme perversion of thought, the Nazi theory of the master race. The case we make is a plea of humanity to law.?
Just three years before, Mr. Ferencz had fought as a US soldier to liberate Europe from the Nazis. He was one of the first to enter the Nazi death camps. ?I've dug up bodies with my own hands in trying to put together a dossier for war crimes prosecutions,? says Mr. Ferenez. ?It was apparent to me that unless we develop some system of international law to bring the perpetrators of such crime to justice everybody will be imperiled, and wars will continue with increasing veracity. Not believing that was a good thing and having experienced the horrors myself, I have dedicated most of my life to try to create this peaceful world I have dreamt about.?
Today, at age 83, Mr. Ferencz is still working for the ideals of the Nuremberg court, this time through the first-ever permanent International Criminal Court, or ICC. ?The International Criminal Court is designed to protect the world against crimes which universally threaten all of humankind,? he says ?and that is what we tried to do at Nuremberg and that's what the United States stood for and I believe that is what a majority of American people stand for today.?
About 90 countries including many US allies like Canada, the EU nations, Brazil and South Korea -- have signed on to the court. But not all nations are supporting the ICC. Many of the world's dictatorships have shunned it. Even a few democratic states, including Israel, India, and the United States, have expressed reservations. The Bush administration goes one step farther by strongly opposing the court. It is determined to exempt US citizens from its prosecution.
Ruth Wedgewood, an international law professor at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, says ?if the Americans have a quarter of a million troops deployed around the world that contribute to security on behave of all the neighbors in the region, they are uniquely vulnerable to the court's jurisdiction.?
She is concerned that the court could be used to mount politically motivated charges against US leaders or soldiers ? a view shared by the White House. ?Some people see the International Criminal Court as this device with which to counter American power. That is, for example, if the French can't win in the Security Council, they will then take the case to the ICC and charge the United States with aggression or violation of the rules of battlefield law.?
Ms. Wedgewood says the US administration has a major problem with the fact the ICC can even prosecute individuals from countries that haven't ratified the treaty establishing the court. She says this puts US peacekeepers at risk of ICC prosecution when they are in other nations.
But Ben Ferencz says this is an overblown and misguided fear. As a former combat soldier, he says he wouldn't support anything to jeopardize US troops anywhere in the world. ? The International Criminal Court would have no jurisdiction whatsoever over all of these US troops unless the leaders were responsible for committing genocide or crimes against humanity, which means crimes of such magnitude as to be of concern to the international community as a whole. American troops nowhere in the world do that. The court is for people like Saddam Hussein?like Adolf Hitler?like Stalin, people who direct these kind of crimes.?
Furthermore, Mr. Ferencz says the diversity of the 18 leading judges many are from leading US allies including Canada and Great Britain assures the court's impartiality.
Maggie Gardner, Program Manager with the World Federalist Association, an NGO actively supporting the ICC, agrees.