
By Ashley Hayes
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of February 2024, 124 states are party to the statute. Among other things, it establishes court function, jurisdiction and structure.
The Rome Statute established four core international crimes:
1) genocide;
2) crimes against humanity;
3) war crimes; and
4) the crime of aggression.
Those crimes “shall not be subject to any statute of limitations”. Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can only investigate and prosecute the four core international crimes in situations where states are “unable” or “unwilling” to do so themselves.
Human Rights Watch (hrw.org) tells us: The US participated in the negotiations that led to the creation of the court. However, in 1998 the US was one of only seven countries – along with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen – that voted against the Rome Statute.
US President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in 2000 but did not submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification. In 2002, President George W. Bush effectively “unsigned” the treaty, sending a note to the United Nations secretary-general that the US no longer intended to ratify the treaty and that it did not have any obligations toward it.
Obama didn’t sign it.
Trump not only didn’t sign it, he signed an Executive Order imposing sanctions on the ICC which, according to foreignpolicy.com, he has long sought to undermine. (No oversight allowed!)
Then, President Joe Biden repealed the executive order authorizing such sanctions. However, he still did not sign the treaty, thereby allowing crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity to go on within our borders, without repercussion. And to drill that point home, dual Israeli-American citizen, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken stated, “We maintain our longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over personnel of non-States Parties such as the United States and Israel.”
Does this sound like government of the people, by the people, for the people?
You decide.
Share what you know . . . .
Sources & Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/02/qa-international-criminal-court-and-united-states#:~:text=Howeverin1998theUSwasoneof,submitthetreatytotheSenateforratification.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/17/trumps-chilling-blow-to-the-icc/
Ashley Hayes is a former business entrepreneur, patented inventor, researcher, and writer seeking to bring attention to the clearly-organized crimes of unlawful and corrupt law enforcement and fusion center personnel against innocent Americans and citizens worldwide, as well as crimes committed by military contractors via 21st-century technology, and to the pandemic of child trafficking by those in power.
