The new part isn’t “this administration doesn’t want Americans to be held accountable to the international criminal court.”
The new part is “this administration doesn’t seem to want ANYONE held accountable to the international criminal court, even the world’s worst genocidal monsters.”
Yes, but not by international criminal court.
An example of an American convicted of war crimes via court martial is William Calley.
Yes, that’s a pretty good (as in both representative and informative) example.
Yall think Commander Bone Spurs has opinions about war criminals? This is 100% John Bolton. He’s had a beef with the UN since he was a kid.
Would this move not make us a rogue state?
This may have to do with something other than war criminals. In 2016, the ICC published a policy paper that delineated how environmental crimes could be prosecuted under Crimes Against Humanity. Environmental crimes may include:
“illegal exploitation of natural resources, arms trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism, financial crimes, land grabbing or the destruction of the environment.”
Trump’s actions against renewable energy, his guidelines for the EPA, and the decades-long anti-science propaganda campaigns by the Koch brothers, Rush Limbaugh, etc, and fossil fuel companies might all well qualify for prosecution.
I gotta say, if the Dems take back the House and Senate, and then the Presidency, joining the ICC and prosecuting the propagandists could be the most effective way to end fossil fuel use. It could clear the way for government mandates to simply fix the problem.
One of these statements is true?
In the sense of “we say something, and do what we said we’d do”?
Trump’s war with the ICC is actually an assault on Palestinians trying to protect themselves against Israeli war crimes. https://mondoweiss.net/2018/09/casualty-administration-international/
16 years… hmmm, who was comtemplating endless warfare against the wrong people at the time…
I don’t see that it compares to Guantanamo very much at all. Nuremberg, probably has parallels. After you posted this, I reread the London Charter, which was used as the framework for the Nuremberg trials. I would not want to be before such a tribunal.
“The tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence”
“The judgement of the tribunal …shall be final and not subject for review”
There is always a final tribunal…the buck has to stop somewhere.
and that’s even getting into whether people do or don’t believe in a Last Judgment… 
It’s hardly surprising that the ICC has similar principles to the International Military Tribunal since it follows on from it in terms of outlook, jurisprudence, etc.
It doesn’t compare to Guantanamo at all as you say and Guantanamo of course does not apply to US citizens.
I wonder why all those safeguards for citizens are considered too good for foreigners…
The Nuremberg Tribunal was of course set up with fairly hefty input from the US.
Re the Rome Statute:
Could you point me to the relevant Article? I can’t find anything to that effect.
The prosecutor gets to appeal an acquittal (Article 81) which is pretty standard in most jurisdictions these days but as far as I can see it is only a convicted person or their relatives who get to seek a review of the court’s decision if additional evidence comes forward later (Article 84). The Prosecutor can do so on their behalf.
Unless I’m missing something the Prosecutor can’t reopen an acquittal once the appeal process has been exhausted.
Article 81 I was referring to. 81c discusses the conditions that can result in the acquitted accused remaining in custody while the appeal is pending.
An Analysis of this in respect to double jeopardy starts on page 241 of the following:
Rereading, I think I misinterpreted the additional evidence issue, unless new evidence can be admitted under the “prosecutorial appeal” process.
It can (by either side) but the time for lodging an appeal is limited. See Rule 150 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence:
https://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/PIDS/legal-texts/RulesProcedureEvidenceEng.pdf
The convicted person is the only one who gets to introduce fresh evidence even if it turns up years later.
The section on prosecution appeals in that article sums up the views nicely. US folks don’t think the prosecutor should get to appeal acquittals or low sentences, civil law jurisdictions tend to be fine with it. The UK does it too these days.
I can see why the US doesn’t want to be part of the ICC but it doesn’t exactly say to the rest of the world that “yes, we will play nicely with others”… especially given the US’s terrible track record of dealing with allegations of war crimes against it.
But then which major Western nation has a good track record in that respect?
At least the US is consistent in its refusal to engage. I doubt Britain would be any too keen to release any of its servicemen to the ICC. Just look at the outrage any time the issue of investigating/prosecuting soldiers for events in Northern Ireland comes up and that’s just for UK prosecutions let alone the Hague.
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