It’s a little more complicated than that. For one thing, the US Constitution guarantees a trial by jury, and the ICC does not have any Juries. And also, the US court system puts the highest authority under one Supreme Court, and if the US were to join the ICC it would have to figure out how to have the ICC’s jurisdiction align with that.
It will require a Constitutional amendment to allow the ICC to function within our judicial system, and everyone knows that. Bill Clinton originally signed the treaty when he was President, but never submitted it to Congress because he understood the legal and constitutional hurdles it faced
We can and should make people waive their jury rights when they sign up to be soldiers or federal employees or contractors or elected officials. Think of it like how you have to agree to arbitration with a company when installing their software or whatever, you don’t sign the contract/take the oath of office/etc. if you don’t want to answer to an ICC panel.
the US court system puts the highest authority under one Supreme Court
Article III of the Constitution is like two pages because everyone in the 18th century convention hall without air conditioning in the Washington DC summer was hot and tired by the time they got to it and it basically just says “Congress should make a court system of some sort.” Congress could pass a law saying the Supreme Court is now the ICC and they get original jurisdiction over any international matters and we’d be fine.
Bill Clinton originally signed the treaty when he was President, but never submitted it to Congress because
He didn’t want US service members to be held accountable for their war crimes because that would have cost him a lot of political capital and he never cared that about the lives of vulnerable people
It’s a little more complicated than that. For one thing, the US Constitution guarantees a trial by jury, and the ICC does not have any Juries. And also, the US court system puts the highest authority under one Supreme Court, and if the US were to join the ICC it would have to figure out how to have the ICC’s jurisdiction align with that.
It will require a Constitutional amendment to allow the ICC to function within our judicial system, and everyone knows that. Bill Clinton originally signed the treaty when he was President, but never submitted it to Congress because he understood the legal and constitutional hurdles it faced
I didn’t claim it would be easy… maybe some sort of catch-and-extradite “hands off” policy.
I just feel like rubbing elbows with that guy is a dumb fucking idea for any US government officials.
But Trump is a dumb fuck (imho), so whatever.
We can and should make people waive their jury rights when they sign up to be soldiers or federal employees or contractors or elected officials. Think of it like how you have to agree to arbitration with a company when installing their software or whatever, you don’t sign the contract/take the oath of office/etc. if you don’t want to answer to an ICC panel.
Article III of the Constitution is like two pages because everyone in the 18th century convention hall without air conditioning in the Washington DC summer was hot and tired by the time they got to it and it basically just says “Congress should make a court system of some sort.” Congress could pass a law saying the Supreme Court is now the ICC and they get original jurisdiction over any international matters and we’d be fine.
He didn’t want US service members to be held accountable for their war crimes because that would have cost him a lot of political capital and he never cared that about the lives of vulnerable people