Global Policy Forum

Barbara Crossette

With less than two days to go at a meeting to put finishing touches on the International Criminal Court, a group of nations friendly to the United States is scrambling, with diminishing confidence, to strike a deal that would let the Clinton administration sign on to the tribunal.

"Delegations are twisting themselves into pretzels to bring the Americans in," said Richard Dicker, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch and an expert on the court.

A similar drama is being played out this week on the issue of reducing American dues to the United Nations. On both issues, many nations, especially the Europeans, have been working overtime to keep the United States from drifting farther away from international organizations just as world trends become more global.

This evening, delegations said they hoped that the United States would introduce some new proposals on the court on Thursday. The new court will be the first permanent international tribunal for trying individuals charged with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Since the Nuremberg trials of Nazis, criminal tribunals have been ad hoc creations like the courts for war crimes in Rwanda and the Balkans.

This week, several countries — among them Australia, Britain and Switzerland — have suggested that a limited exemption given to France in 1998 when the treaty establishing the court was approved in Rome should be extended to the United States and other countries who sign. That exemption gave France seven years of immunity for war crimes in return for a promise to sign and ratify the treaty, which France subsequently did. The French said they needed time to align their military training and laws.

The United States poses a different problem, however. It is arguing for a permanent exemption for itself and for countries that do not sign. The Pentagon has demanded guarantees that no American soldier or official on duty abroad could ever be tried by the court, a stipulation that President Clinton, while professing to support the court, has shrunk from overruling. If the administration signs before Dec. 31, it does not have to ratify the treaty immediately. After that date, any country has to both sign and ratify the treaty to take part.

In Congress, opposition among Republican leaders has been extremely strong. Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly said the court treaty will not be ratified on his watch. "We're not against war crimes tribunals," a spokesman for the committee, Marc Thiessen, said. But without better checks on the court's jurisdiction and operation, particularly through the Security Council, the court is "fundamentally dangerous," he said in an interview. "This court is the League of Nations of international war crimes," Mr. Thiessen said. "It is a flawed and failed first effort. Maybe in 30 years it can be improved."

In both the Senate and the House, a bill was introduced this year that would prohibit any court and all levels of government in the United States from cooperating with the International Criminal Court, though officials would be permitted to deal with ad hoc tribunals. The bill would also require permanent immunity for Americans before the United States could participate in any peacekeeping operation.

Moreover, the bill would stop military aid to any country that accepts the court, with the exception of NATO nations and important allies, virtually all of whom have already signed the treaty.

On Nov. 29, Congress picked up support from a significant list of former American officials, among them prominent advisers to Gov. George W. Bush. In a letter to Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority whip, 12 high-level officials, including four former secretaries of state, James A. Baker III, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz, and three former national security advisers, Richard V. Allen, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, said the court would infringe basic American constitutional rights.

The letter writers called the Congressional bill, the American Servicemen's Protection Act, "an appropriate response to the threat to American sovereignty and international freedom of action posed by the International Criminal Court."