Rubio launches campaign to dismantle ICC

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has called on Gov­ern­ment to say if it will sup­port the Unit­ed States’ call to dis­man­tle the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC), which late for­mer prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son played an in­stru­men­tal role in es­tab­lish­ing.

Robin­son is known in his­to­ry as the “grand­fa­ther” of the ICC.

Browne made the call yes­ter­day, af­ter CNN re­port­ed on US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio’s vow to “dis­man­tle” the ICC, urg­ing oth­er coun­tries to join the ef­fort.

The Unit­ed States’ is­sues with the ICC be­gan with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s first term, when the court was cit­ed for seek­ing to in­ves­ti­gate al­leged war crimes com­mit­ted by US forces in Afghanistan. In Trump’s cur­rent term, the US has im­posed sanc­tions against ICC of­fi­cials for their at­tempts to in­ves­ti­gate the US and Is­rael.

Ru­bio has al­so re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions that the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­por­ta­tions to El Sal­vador and its dead­ly boat strikes on al­leged nar­co-ter­ror­ists had vi­o­lat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al law and he’s re­buffed a call for the ICC to in­ves­ti­gate al­leged war crimes com­mit­ted by the US in Iran.

CNN re­port­ed that the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s in­ten­si­fied ef­forts against the ICC in­clude State De­part­ment moves to “pres­sure” coun­tries to join Ru­bio’s call, threat­en­ing po­ten­tial cuts to US as­sis­tance “for those who don’t.”

A US State De­part­ment of­fi­cial was quot­ed as say­ing that na­tions that refuse to re­ject “the ICC’s false au­thor­i­ty while re­ly­ing on US as­sis­tance are like­ly to come un­der in­creased scruti­ny.”

The of­fi­cial said coun­tries “that part­ner with US law en­force­ment, host a US mil­i­tary pres­ence, or ben­e­fit from the broad­er US se­cu­ri­ty um­brel­la” are be­ing called up­on to re­ject the ICC’s “pur­port­ed au­thor­i­ty to pros­e­cute Amer­i­can of­fi­cials and ser­vice­men.”

“We will watch with in­ter­est which na­tions join ranks with us against this threat to Amer­i­cans who are will­ing to risk their lives to pro­tect oth­ers,” the of­fi­cial added.

Yes­ter­day, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Browne not­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of the ICC to T&T.

Af­ter late for­mer PM and Pres­i­dent Robin­son’s 1989 pro­pos­al to the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly to re­vive the con­cept of a per­ma­nent glob­al court to pros­e­cute glob­al crimes and drug traf­fick­ing, it was adopt­ed in 1990 with its found­ing treaty, the Rome Statute. Pro­pelled by Robin­son’s ad­vo­ca­cy, T&T be­came the third coun­try in the world to rat­i­fy the statute.

As a last­ing trib­ute, the ICC’s first and main court­room at its head­quar­ters in The Hague is named in Robin­son’s ho­n­our. The ICC al­so paid trib­ute to Robin­son when he died in 2014.

Yes­ter­day, Browne said, “The Re­pub­lic of T&T has been a long­stand­ing, con­sis­tent sup­port­er of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, ever since for­mer prime min­is­ter, the late ANR Robin­son, served an in­stru­men­tal role in the es­tab­lish­ment of the court.

“Giv­en this most re­cent de­vel­op­ment, it would be im­por­tant for the Gov­ern­ment of T&T to state its po­si­tion on the role of the ICC, and to pro­vide its per­spec­tive on any moves to dis­man­tle the court.”

For­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, who was elect­ed an ICC judge for 2012-13 be­fore be­com­ing pres­i­dent in 2013, was un­avail­able for com­ment yes­ter­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers didn’t re­ply to Guardian Me­dia queries whether T&T sup­ports Ru­bio’s call and if they’d re­ceived any US re­quests to with­draw from the ICC.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment has been a firm sup­port­er of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, re­ceiv­ing US se­cu­ri­ty as­sis­tance and eco­nom­ic/en­er­gy in­vest­ment. Last Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced US health sec­tor aid and Mem­o­ran­da of Un­der­stand­ing for dis­cus­sions on US part­ner­ships for da­ta cen­tre de­vel­op­ment, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in­fra­struc­ture and the restart of the steel plant in Point Lisas.

Ru­bio yes­ter­day ac­cused the ICC of “wag­ing a war” against the US, with “the force of so-called in­ter­na­tion­al law.”

Ru­bio, who al­so wrote about the is­sue in the Wall Street Jour­nal, ac­cused the ICC of be­ing “backed and run by a pow­er­ful net­work of left­ist non gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions, smug glob­al­ists, and hos­tile Third World gov­ern­ments unit­ed by their en­mi­ty to­ward the US.”

He said the US would dis­man­tle the ICC, “…. us­ing all the tools at our gov­ern­ment’s dis­pos­al, work­ing be­side every al­ly with whom we can make com­mon cause.”

A State De­part­ment of­fi­cial said tools in­clude pos­si­ble trav­el bans, visa re­vo­ca­tions and in­creased sanc­tions.

Top US of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing the Sec­re­tary, Deputy Sec­re­tary and US am­bas­sadors, are call­ing coun­tries as part of a cam­paign to diplo­mat­i­cal­ly iso­late the ICC and en­sure it can­not tar­get Amer­i­cans. Calls are geared to per­suade coun­tries who are par­ty to the ICC to with­draw from it and cut fi­nan­cial sup­port to ICC.

The US is urg­ing na­tions that aren’t par­ties to the ICC, “to lever­age their diplo­mat­ic net­works to take sim­i­lar ac­tion along­side us.”