LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th March, 2020) Washington's outright refusal to cooperate in a recently announced probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into possible war crimes in Afghanistan is symptomatic of the United States' broader contempt for international law, Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, a former UN independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, told Sputnik.
Last week, the ICC authorised the commencement of an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by parties to the Afghan conflict, including US personnel. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the decision as "breathtaking" and "reckless," while reaffirming his intention to ensure US citizens remain outside the jurisdiction of "this renegade, unlawful so-called court." He reiterated that the US was not a party to the ICC.
"The man [Pompeo] has no shame. Again and again he places the United States and himself above international law, as if the US were 'legibus solutus,' as the Roman emperors claimed, and not bound by peremptory rules of international law and the UN Charter. Pompeo uses invective to defame not only the ICC, but also other international institutions of investigation and settlement," de Zayas said.
According to the former UN official, this reaction is nothing but a "frontal attack" on international law and institutions.
This rhetoric, he went on, also speaks to the US' ongoing hostility to the ICC, a point that was arguably a serious factor in last year's ICC decision not to investigate the Afghan conflict.
"The credibility of the ICC depends on its independence and even-handedness. Whereas Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wanted in November 2017 to commence an investigation, three ICC judges decided in April 2019 not to pursue the investigation. Why? Massive pressure from the US - in March 2019 Mike Pompeo stated that the US would revoke or deny visas to ICC personnel seeking to investigate possible war crimes by US forces and its allies in Afghanistan," he recalled.
Asked about how likely the investigation is to meet with any success in the face of an uncooperative Trump administration, de Zayas argued that there was "abundant evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by US forces, NATO forces and private military and security companies."
"Julian Assange and Wikileaks are only one of many reliable sources. Even the New York Times and Washington Post have reported on some of these crimes, particularly torture in Bagram and Abu Ghraib. Sometimes these crimes are whitewashed as 'errors' or 'regrettable excesses,' but we do know about them, and there are thousands of living witnesses and survivors of torture and massacres," he said.
The ICC greenlighted a probe into possible war crimes in Afghanistan just days after the US struck a peace deal with the Taliban as a means to de-escalate what is now America's longest running armed conflict.
Questions yet remain as to how the investigation may be conducted, given the US is not a party to the ICC and formally outside its jurisdiction.
