Martin W. Smith wrote:

>The US Constitution, the preamble of which is shown above, did in fact
>assert the primacy of [some] international
>institutions over the thirteen nation states.  So the argument against
>ratifying the ICC cannot be that proponents want to assert the primacy
>of international institutions, since the Constitution is based on that
>very principle.  I suppose that the people in power, who will refuse to
>ratify the ICC, will do so to maintain their international power, but
>the support for not ratifying that they derive from the people (who gain
>nothing by not having the ICC) must be racism.

Whatever the US constitution might say, the individual states of the US are no longer sovereign nation states in anything but name. By ceding their foreign affairs powers to the federal government, they cede their sovereignty.

By the same token of course, the ICC explicitly recognises the primacy of national law. The US has first crack at prosecuting US nationals accused of war crimes, the ICC only being entitled to exercise jurisdiction in the event that the US is unable or unwilling to do so.

Since it is obvious that the US is perfectly capable of prosecuting war crimes, there seems little doubt that the US government is motivated by an unwillingness to prosecute US war criminals. The US government is brazenly insisting on its right to harbour war criminals.

But the ICC nations are being pig-headed and insisting that international law can't exempt the US from international law. One European ICC proponent put it this way: "If the US wants to be the world's policeman, it will have to play by the world's rules".

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas