International Criminal Court Headquarters In The Hague Netherlands

By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC TIMES

It appears that the International Criminal Court caved into the relentless pressure and scathing attacks by the Trump Administration that vowed to all but destroy the war tribunal if it investigated alleged American war crimes in Afghanistan.  The ICC announced Friday that it rejected a request made by the ICC prosecutor to open a probe into possible war crimes committed during the conflict in Afghanistan.  The ICC was seeking  to hold the U.S. accountable for alleged war crimes including torture of detainees by C.I.A. operatives at secret prisons known as “black sites.”

“The chamber hereby decides that an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan at this stage would not serve the interests of justice and accordingly rejects the request,”

-ICC decision stated Apr. 12, 2019

Trump Administration Bans ICC War Crimes Prosecutor From Entering  U.S. 

Credit: ICC.int /  International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda 

In November 2017, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda asked judges to open an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Afghan national security forces, Taliban and Haqqani network fighters, as well as U.S. forces and intelligence officials in Afghanistan since May 2003.

Last week,  US authorities  revoked Bensouda’s entry into the United States, as part of its sweeping policy to deny visas to ICC members investigating alleged war crimes committed by American troops in Afghanistan.  The U.S.’  persona non grata  ICC list  extended all the  way up to The Hague-based war tribunal’s head prosecutor Bensouda, who is from west African nation Gambia. 

  “…persistent to existing legal authority to post visa restrictions on any alien, quote, ‘whose entry or proposed activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,’ end of quote, I’m announcing a policy of U.S. visa restrictions on those individuals directly responsible for any ICC investigation of U.S. personnel.”

-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in announcing the ICC policy Mar. 15, 2019

White House Praises ICC Decision To Halt Probe Into  American War Crimes 

In a statement, President Trump praised the ICC for refusing the prosecutor’s request to investigate allegations of war crimes by U.S. military and intelligence personnel during the Afghanistan War.

  ICC Sought Unprecedented investigation of alleged U.S. War Crimes in Afghanistan

credit: Wikipedia /US troops in Afghanistan

 Last September 2018, the Trump Administration unleashed one of the most scathing public attacks on an global judicial institution in recent memory.  In an unprecedented, vitriolic attack on the ICC, US National Security Adviser John Bolton threatened sanctions on The Hague-based war tribunal if the court dares investigate alleged American war crimes in Afghanistan. Bolton made the  remarks in a speech at the ultra-conservative Federalist Society in Washington D.C.

credit: cnbc.com /   US National Security Adviser Bolton

Bolton damned the ICC as “ineffective, unaccountable,” “outright dangerous” and “contrary to American principles,” and said the US “would respond against the ICC and its personnel to the extent permitted by US law.” Bolton vowed that the US would not sit by idly if the ICC follows through on an investigation into alleged American war crimes:

“We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will certainly not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us,”

-National Security adviser Bolton.

It appears the ICC caved in to the wrath of the Trump administration .  Human rights advocates blasted  the  ICC decision as a  retreat from the court’s purpose of providing war-crimes victims with a means of seeking justice, and a capitulation to the heavy-handed United States pressure. 

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