Global Policy Forum

By Steven Edwards

Threatens to veto operations, beginning in Bosnia, unless war crimes court is bridled

The United States is threatening to disrupt international peacekeeping operations unless its own peacekeepers are exempted from prosecution in the United Nations' new war crimes court.

The first mission threatened with closure is a UN policing operation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its mandate expires tonight at midnight unless renewed by the UN Security Council, where the United States holds veto power.

The United States says it will not allow a vote on the mission unless its concerns are satisfied, a move that would immediately affect a 1,586-person policing operation, in which nine Canadians and 46 Americans serve, and could have ramifications for thousands of troops in the larger NATO-led peacekeeping force.

"There should be no misunderstanding that if there is not adequate protection for U.S. peacekeepers, there will be no U.S. peacekeepers," Richard S. Williamson, the U.S. representative at the UN for special political affairs, said he told council members in a closed session this week.

Despite being a reluctant early supporter of the International Criminal Court under the Clinton administration, Washington has since washed its hands of the tribunal, saying its rules contain insufficient safeguards to prevent politically inspired show trials of U.S. citizens. The court would be the first tribunal with global powers to prosecute crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Canada and the European Union's 15 members are among the 67 countries that have ratified the Rome Treaty authorizing the new court, which is to begin operations on July 1.

Bill Graham, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, said: "I continue to argue with the United States that they would be better advancing the cause of international peace and security if they were to join us at the ICC and get it up and running."

UN peacekeepers already receive immunity protection under "status of mission" agreements that the world body negotiates with countries that are to receive peacekeeping troops.

But U.S. officials say this will not be enough once the ICC is operational. For example, the agreements do not cover troops "in transit" -- and so a third country could arrest a soldier or official. The United States fears countries opposed to Washington's foreign policies will haul U.S. citizens before the court on trumped up charges.

"Our views on the ICC are known," said one U.S. official. "We are not against peacekeeping. We want to make peacekeeping as strong as possible."

"But we strongly feel," the U.S. official continued, "that we need more options than what are currently provided in the Rome statutes. So we are seeking to get those assurances in some way. How those assurances will come about I am not sure. We are talking to a variety of people."

Throughout the week, U.S. diplomats have been trying to convince Britain and France -- also among the five veto-wielding powers in the Security Council -- to back a resolution that would grant broad immunity to UN peacekeepers anywhere in the world on all current and future missions.

The U.S. attempts have been rebuffed. Britain, a strong backer of the court, is talking of a "practical compromise" that will fall short of what the United States wants. France said it had included the ideals of the ICC in its constitution and so could not support a measure that exempted any one group from the court's jurisdiction.

But the United States holds the trump card in today's decision on the Bosnian mandate. The Security Council cannot move ahead if the United States opposes the mandate.

As a condition for its support, the United States has presented the other Security Council members with a text it would like to see included.

The text says "no current or former officials or personnel from any state" contributing to peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina will ever be tried by the ICC for anything they have done while serving in the country.

If the mandate is not renewed, the policing operation would have to shut down immediately, depriving Bosnia-Herzegovina of vital backup to its own policing resources.

Not approving the mandate would also affect the international legal position of the NATO-led peacekeeping force, in which 2,500 U.S. and 1,700 Canadian troops serve. The force, though it could remain operational, would no longer have the "authorization" of the Security Council.

"It would mean that the peacekeepers would have no legal backing internationally," said a UN official.

Human rights groups that support the court say granting blanket immunity to any group would set a dangerous precedent that war criminals could manipulate to slip free of prosecution.

"As soon as you start exempting [groups from] prosecution, you introduce one kind of justice for some, and another kind for others," said Bill Pace, chief liaison of the Coalition for the ICC. "We have seen so-called peacekeeping operations in different regions where the peacekeeping country was committing crimes against innocent civilians," he said.

He cited acts by Nigerian forces in a West African peacekeeping force sent to Sierra Leone, and Russian forces in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, though the Russians never received international sanction as peacekeepers.

UN officials and some diplomats said they expect the United States to agree to a "rollover" of the mandate that would extend it for a few days to allow the question of immunity to be resolved. "I don't think they really want to undermine the legal basis for the peacekeeping force," said one Western diplomat. "A rollover will give time for experts to start looking for a compromise. I don't think even the U.S. knows its bottom line." Yet the United States persisted with tough talk. "We don't have a vote until we solve the problem," said the U.S. official.

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