Bolton: International Criminal Court ‘already dead to us’
WASHINGTON — America’s long-running reluctant relationship with the International Criminal Court came to a crashing halt as decades of U.S. suspicions about the tribunal and its global jurisdiction spilled into open hostility, amid threats of sanctions if it investigates U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
National security adviser John Bolton on Monday denounced the legitimacy of The Hague-based court, which was created in 2002 to prosecute war crimes and crimes of humanity and genocide in areas where perpetrators might not otherwise face justice. The court has 123 state parties that recognize its jurisdiction.
Bolton’s speech, on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack, came as an ICC judge was expected to soon announce a decision on a request from prosecutors to formally open an investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by Afghan national security forces, Taliban and Haqqani network militants and U.S. forces and intelligence in Afghanistan since May 2003. The accusations against U.S. personnel include torture and illegal imprisonment.
“The International Criminal Court unacceptably threatens American sovereignty and U.S. national security interests,” Bolton told the Federalist Society, a conservative Washington-based think-tank .