June 16, 2004|By Mark Matthews | Mark Matthews,SUN NATIONAL STAFF
WASHINGTON - The United States faces an embarrassing international debate over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal - and a possible diplomatic defeat - at the United Nations as American officials try to protect U.S. troops in Iraq and elsewhere from prosecution in the International Criminal Court.
The Bush administration, a fierce opponent of the court, wants the U.N. Security Council to renew a resolution, first adopted two years ago, that exempts troops in U.N.-mandated missions from investigation or prosecution by the court.
U.S. diplomats secured the necessary votes in 2002 only by threatening to veto United Nations peacekeeping missions.
In the wake of the prison abuse scandal this year, achieving passage will be even more difficult, according to diplomats and human rights groups.
"It's transformed the landscape," said Richard Dicker, an international justice specialist at Human Rights Watch.
Anger at the United States has been compounded by disclosure of internal Bush administration legal memos offering narrow definitions of what constitutes torture and suggesting that U.S. forces could operate outside the bounds of the international laws of war, rights groups say.
The latest one-year renewal of the resolution expires at the end of June, which coincidentally is the date when American occupation authorities hand over political power in Iraq to a new interim Iraqi administration.
A failure by the United States to gain the renewal could represent one of the first tangible international repercussions of the scandal, which top U.S. officials admit has badly damaged American credibility and moral authority overseas.
About 45 nations have demanded a public debate on the resolution.
"I would expect 25, 30, 35 member states to speak about Abu Ghraib at the public debate," a council diplomat said yesterday. These include representatives of the European Union, the diplomat said.
Such demands for debate are usually respected, and the council is expected today to schedule it, possibly for next Monday, the diplomat said.
No date has been set for a new vote, and a senior State Department officials indicated last night that the Bush administration is unsure about its strategy for winning votes.
"We'll decide what to do once we know the full lay of the land," the official said.
Another State Department official said, "We do expect that the technical rollover will be taken up in due course. It remains a U.S. priority."
The heavy U.S. pressure that might be required to win passage of the resolution could damage the hard-won goodwill that the United States gained by agreeing to a series of compromises in the U.N. resolution, adopted June 7, that restores sovereignty to Iraq, diplomats and rights groups say.
U.S. diplomats tried to win Security Council passage of the renewal in May but then postponed the vote, apparently for lack of the necessary nine "yes" votes.
China's ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, citing the prison-abuse scandal, said in late May that the renewal would send "a very bad signal at this time."
Exposure of the prison abuse has revived debate over the International Criminal Court, a permanent war-crimes tribunal based in the Hague that was created by an international agreement in 1998.
Although former President Clinton signed the treaty establishing the court, the Bush administration maintains that the United States does not fall under the court's jurisdiction.
The administration has mounted an aggressive effort over the past two years to protect American troops and officials from the court's reach, which it says could subject U.S. citizens to politically motivated investigations and prosecutions.
Using aid as a lever, it has secured immunity agreements from at least 75 nations.
Several legal experts said a failure to get the renewal would likely have little practical effect on U.S. troops in Iraq because the ICC would come into play only in war crimes cases that the United States itself is unable or unwilling to prosecute. Iraq is not a party to the ICC statute.
As for U.N. peacekeeping troops elsewhere, including Americans, they usually fall under agreements giving exclusive legal jurisdiction for any crimes they might commit to the countries that contribute them.
"Countries feel this is a gratuitous show of power on the part of the U.S.," said John Washburn, a retired U.S. diplomat and a major supporter of the International Criminal Court.
But the new U.N. debate arises amid a swirl of investigations and civil claims involving U.S. troops and contractors accused of abuses in Iraq.
The United States has yet to conclude an agreement with the new Iraqi authorities that would protect American soldiers from prosecution by Iraqi courts.
A military official said such an agreement will have to be worked out once a sovereign Iraqi government takes over July 1.
