Talks on World Criminal Court Exemplify Best and Worst of U.N.

Negotiations over the creation of a permanent international criminal court have entered their third week in Rome, and the treaty conference has begun to exemplify the best and worst of the United Nations as the organization struggles to redefine its purpose in the next millennium.

On the surface and perhaps more deeply, the 159 countries gathered in Rome are embarked on a just and noble endeavor, one that echoes the postwar optimism that led to the foundation of the U.N. itself in 1945. It is a collective effort to increase order and the rule of law among nations and to punish and prevent the barbarism that has been a feature of the latter half of the 20th century.

If the conference succeeds, its legacy will be a permanent tribunal to indict, try and penalize leaders who engage in war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

But the negotiations and public posturing here also embody the misty-minded idealism and the self-centered power politics that are the yin and yang of the United Nations.

That is strikingly evident in the emergence in the early days of the conference of the United States as the favorite punching bag of most human rights experts--this despite the presence at the conference of numerous authoritarian governments, including such widely acknowledged abusers of human rights as China, Cuba and Indonesia.

Part of the anti-U.S. tilt stems inevitably from envy over America’s predominance as the world’s lone superpower and resentment over its deadbeat status as the U.N.’s largest debtor. And part is the fault of the Clinton administration, which has saddled its Rome delegation with a somewhat schizophrenic bargaining position, the result of unresolved conflicts between the State Department, which is enthusiastic about the prospect of a world court to try pariah leaders, and the Defense Department, which fears that the tribunal will be used to harass American GIs.

U.S. officials are beginning to get a bit defensive and resentful. One telephoned a reporter in New York from Rome to protest that the U.S. delegation is not nearly as isolated as media reports indicate. The official complained about the spin being put on the conference by U.S.-based human rights organizations, which are especially critical of the Clinton administration’s bargaining position.

The U.S. is lobbying for a permanent court but only a small-scale, tightly controlled court of last resort, not the wide-ranging, activist body favored by many American allies.

Moreover, the U.S. wants a major role for the U.N. Security Council, where it is one of five countries with veto power and thus could control the court docket.

Advocates of an activist court, who number about 50 and have dubbed themselves “the like-minded group,” contend the U.S. version would amount to a mirage of a court, at best a tribunal that would be a tool of American foreign policy rather than a truly independent entity. They are generally dismissive of American concerns that the court could be misused to persecute American soldiers and impede U.S. policy objectives.

There is some sentiment among these countries to stop trying to bridge the gap and start the court without U.S. participation. According to this line of thinking, the Americans will come along later when they see how the tribunal works.

Backers of this course argue that a new international order is emerging--they call it “soft power”--in which like-minded nations can band together to create institutions to offset the overwhelming military and economic strength of the United States.

Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, a leading exponent of “soft power,” described it in an address at Harvard University in April as “the power to co-opt, rather than coerce, others to your agenda and goals . . . , the ability to communicate, negotiate, mobilize opinion, work within multilateral bodies and promote international initiatives.”

Soft power, Axworthy added in an interview, can be especially effective in dealing with humanitarian issues that reach across international boundaries, and it was crucial in getting more than 100 nations to sign an international treaty to ban land mines last year, despite American opposition.

Other analysts suggest that when it comes to an international criminal court, however, a reliance on soft power and international goodwill may involve more than a little wishful thinking. How many tyrants embarked on genocide would balk at the threat of a world court not explicitly backed by U.S. military might, especially if, as seems likely, France, China and Russia also opt out?

U.S. officials note pointedly that, with the exception of Britain, none of the “like-minded” nations is a significant military power. Every member of the Canadian armed forces, for example, could fit into the Rose Bowl, with seats to spare.

But the like-minded states and the U.S. are not the only power centers at work in Rome. Representatives of human rights groups from around the world have assembled there, and although they will not vote on the treaty, nor sign it, they are lobbying vigorously for a powerful tribunal. They also want to be able to participate in determining whom the court would prosecute.

U.S. officials publicly praise the human rights organizations and the expertise in international law they have brought to the conference. But privately they suggest that their idealism may blind them to the political realities that would face a world tribunal.

For example, the officials envision some instances in which justice, in its purest sense, may not be in the international interest. The Northern Ireland peace agreement and the end of apartheid in South Africa, to cite two recent examples, hinged in part on promises of amnesty for terrorism and other acts that could have fallen into the jurisdiction of an international court.

Meanwhile, one group of authoritarian countries is working to weaken the court to the point of impotence.

Critics of the United States say the U.S. position is closer to some of these nations than it is to those of Canada, Britain, Germany, Argentina and South Africa. Certainly, ironies abound on the issue.

At one point, for example, the office of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman who opposes the court on the grounds that it would infringe on U.S. sovereignty, sent out a press release attacking the treaty conference for including Syria and Sudan, two states identified as sponsors of terrorism by the State Department, on one of the key committees.

But observers in Rome point out that Syria and Sudan actually support Helms’ view of the court and share his deep suspicions of it.