> It was a back down because the US wanted permanent immunity or else it would
> gather its toys and go home. The EU, Japan, etc. played some brinkmanship
> with this and succeeded in keeping the court alive and forcing the US to
> compromise. Chomksy and his acolytes, I suspect, see the ICC as an
institution
> for providing cover for big powers should they want to prey on smaller/poorer
> countries via humanitarian interventions. The rabid conservatives in the US
> Congresssee it as an infringement on US sovereignty, so it has to be killed.
I see. So in a year's time, the US will not have any toys? I doubt that the perpetual immunity business was meant to be a anything more than a bargaining position; nevertheless, the US achieved an outcome which is in practice indistinguishable from having all their dreams come true... so if Z Mag doesn't report this, I'd say that they aren't missing much.
Chomsky says quite specifically that the ICC would be an imperfect institution since there is practically no chance it would ever prosecute the war crimes of US nationals. This is incidentally the stated position of those countries, like Canada, Brazil and Mexico, which do support the court. As far as I understand it, Chomsky and Herman have fewer problems with the ICC than they have with the ad-hoc court for Yugoslavia, which despite the vile nature of the accused is very much under NATO control. There is something wrong with that, no?
The calculation against the ICC has almost nothing to do with sovereignty at home, as is conceded by most sane people; it has everything to do with US sovereignty over other countries. And what's more, it is about future sovereignty abroad, given that the pre-immunity exposure of US troops in UN missions to the ICC was precisely zero. I don't think a hegemonical model of imperialism is so off the mark here.
>From another angle, the immunity decision is less than it appears. It doesn't
cover private US citizens or US troops not under a UN mandate. Even the super-
duper US-wins-all position of perpetual immunity would be limited to this; so
even in the best of marvels the US would end up with an additional pressure to
seek UN approval before sending the Marines in. That, I guess, is a
compromise, but quite a different story than the deal in the Security Council.
Thiago Oppermann
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